Eclectic Collecting

Italy By Bicycle, Sola -- My summer tour

2012-01-23T17:18:00.000-07:00

Hi blogger world. It's been a while. I'm well, of course, and wanted to share this li'l piece I wrote for the blog SaltCycle about my short bike tour in Italy last summer. Check it out:

Tales from the Top Tube: Italy By Bicycle, Sola.

The first night on my bike I slept in a little trench on the retained side of a retaining wall. It had poured rain for three hours, the nearby ocean dumping its contents onto the coast. I was exhausted. It was around 1 AM (I sat out much of the rain under a bridge), I had just biked through the treacherous sprawling city of Genova, Italy, and the campground signs I had followed up a big hill and past an eerie cemetery led me to a very closed “terreno per campeggio.” Not feeling up to sneaking in on my first night, I opted to riding further up the hill, battling the overwhelming desire to drop right where I was, and not exactly sure what I was looking for. A few hundred meters along I saw the retaining wall and the overhanging trees. Perfect. I tossed my paniers onto the 4 or so foot wall, laid out my tarp, took off my wet shoes and socks, and curled up inside my sleeping bag, half of the tarp folded over me. Loud raindrops dripped onto the tarp. I was asleep in seconds.

Being a girl, etc

2011-10-05T21:54:00.001-06:00

[this blog is something I wrote for another blog I'm part of, SaltCycle.com]

In 6th grade I was playing goalie at recess when I got hit in the face with a soccer ball. You know that feeling, a sharp throb prickling like thousands of needles. The numbing sting made my eyes water and lip quiver. But I didn’t cry. There were boys around, including the one who kicked the ball and I knew I’d get more respect or maybe less crap from the boys if I didn’t cry. [click more for more]

One time in 2nd or 3rd grade I wore a dress for picture day. It was purple and striped. I played on the monkey bars anyways; I wasn’t about to sit around for the whole recess. Hans Locher ran beneath me while I was swinging across the bars and yelled some kind of “I see Jessie’s underpants!!!” thing, which was mostly just annoying but embarrassing enough to keep me from wearing a dress to school for a long time. Not only was it harder to play soccer and play on the playground in a dress, it brought on some kind of debilitating attention from boys and I caught on to that quickly. I wore shorts every day for years.

I thought I only had two options: either I was a tomboy who wore my hair in a ponytail and liked sports more than I liked boys, or I was a girly-girl who hung out with those chicas who painted their nails by the tree stump at recess. So I was a tomboy. For years and years I kind of ignored the feminine aspects of myself. Only recently have I realized how much of a woman I am and how possible it is to balance the sporty feminine side of me with the competitive masculine side.

Women’s bodies are beautiful. Not because they’re sexy, but because they can work and sweat and get strong and fit while being curvy and pretty. I love being a woman. I’ve grown into my own skin a lot in the last couple years. I like having a female figure, a female voice, a female mind. I love my body and wouldn’t trade it for the world. So what’s the problem?

There’s this mountain bike world champion lady named Willow. She’s also a model.

When I heard her story I thought ‘that’s fine, she’s using her sexuality in ways she wants and she’s earned it because she’s so fast and strong.’ So do I think that a woman has to be fast and strong in order to be sexy and feminine? Does she have to be a crazy intense biker chick to ‘earn’ her sexuality? When I’m riding around on my bike in cute clothes or something more feminine than my usual t-shirt and shorts, I find myself hyper-aware of my speed and strength, as if my thoughts are something like, “you can check me out as a cute girl on a bike if and only if you also recognize that I’m fast and strong at the same time.” Wouldn’t it be more interesting to be a beautiful sexy model who rides around on a bike and is just super comfortable with her sexuality and femininity without feeling like she has to earn it in any way? Without trying to balance or justify her sexuality with some kind of masculine feat of strength?

Sort of along those lines, a couple weeks ago there was some construction happening just outside my house and every day I’d ride my bike past the same workers. For the first few days this one worker would stop and stare at me as I passed. I felt a little bit objectified by his stare and I let it bother me. Then finally one day I looked at him and said “Hi” as I passed and he smiled, looked at me as a person, and said ‘hi’ back. I had realized that maybe he was objectifying me and just seeing me as a body on a bike, but I didn’t have to perpetuate that in my mind. I could take a more active position and say hello, do something that pulled him out of the silent voyeurism he was hiding behind and make him recognize me as a person. I don’t know if it worked, if he started seeing me as a person with a name and story, but it helped me step out of this place where I was the victim, passively gazed upon, and into a position with slightly more control.

“Sexuality is the most powerful way in which patriarchal ideology oppresses women’s strength. Sexuality is most ones own for women and yet most taken away in patriarchy. It can be women’s greatest source of strength so if you can suppress that you can keep women from being able to navigate their way to their own strength, that’s how you can keep them subservient.” -Dr. Jennifer Finlayson.

I feel like most women [and I apologize for using simple genders like ‘men’ and ‘women.’ I know things aren’t nearly this simple] in this society are taught (either through educational moments or through social experiences) the social construct that if I wear short shorts I’m a slut, if I kiss too many boys I’m a slut, if I show any cleavage I’m a slut, if I show too much desire I’m a slut. So naturally I did the opposite, hiding my female form for years, playing hard to get, and ignoring my sexuality because it was ‘bad.’ After 20+ years of that way of thinking about myself and about other women I finally broke through it and now find a huge strength through my body and my power as a woman. I have gained a certain respect for myself as a woman and for women all around me. And it’s not because the women around me are strong or fast or have earned or proven their strength and wisdom and sexuality through some feat of strength or what not. I’m learning to appreciate sexuality as a beautiful, positive empowerment. Check out this project, Thought You Knew, for example.

Alexis is a woman who lives in Chicago and for the last few years has been making pin-up girl calendars of women with their own bikes, dressed up how they want. Above is Kathryn. Check out the website, the project, and tell me what you think.

These are our bodies, this is our sexuality. I’m still not a fan of exploiting women or any of that jazz, but feeling beautiful or sexy or cute, wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt, shaving our legs, not shaving our legs, putting on makeup, doing our hair, wearing a ponytail everyday, being checked out by a cute boy, being checked out by a cute girl, checking ourselves out in the window, being sexy and showing desire or being totally disinterested, all of this is part of a huge spectrum of female sexuality and all of it is okay, all of it is personal. I’ll have no more of the expectations (of any type, really) placed on me by men, by the media, by other women, and especially by myself. I don’t need to be told what kind of a woman to be. I’m figuring out who I am and who I want to be every day and it’s a beautiful process. Sexuality is a powerful thing, and context matters. How we use our (or others’) sexuality matters. But being sexual is not the problem, it’s how we’re sexual (Dr. Finlayson again).

As I finish typing this up I’m thinking about men and the expectations that surround them. A lot of what I said here is exactly applicable to men with a few words swapped out. But I see things from a female perspective. I’d love to hear responses from both men and women about both women and men. All this gender and sexuality stuff is real and present and important and fun and I want to talk about it.

Pics phrom phone update

2011-09-19T17:06:00.000-06:00

My brother got married in SF in August so my whole family minus one bro-in-law went out for the wedding. It was spectacular. On our last day there we rented bikes (like 12 or so of us) and rode them across the bridge. SO epic. Doing things like that in huge groups is insane. I was pulling my baby nephew and niece in a trailer the whole time. Fun and tiring and good and happy and I love my family.

I've been through the desert 4 times in the last month and a half. This one's from the drive home from San Fran, through Nevada's desert.

This was a wonderful night of riding and longboarding around town with Rachelle, Kurt, and Bridger.

Sam Lev. Love this kid.

A ride home from C.ville; this is from up on 11th Ave.

I <3 slc

My two best friends, Leah and Rachelle. Took this pic because Leah was looking all feminine and Chelle was eating pudding out of the pot. I've never been happier living with these guys.

Leah is a musician. And look how pretty she is.

Another drive through the desert, this time to Zion with my roomies and Bridger. Stayed at L and R's homes in Hurricane. Love that town.

Rachelle, Bridger, and Catfish (Caitlyn)

Where am I? onyourmarksgetsetgo.

Spoketacular Spoketacular, an awesome team alleycat thrown by the LGBT center. We rode in teams and this beauty is Courtney, one of the five Bearded Ladies.

Two more bearded ladies, me and Davey. Cuties.

Beardless Courtney and lil' potato

Peter, not so beardless IRL but this pic doesn't highlight those pretty bristles.

Peter Carroll and the dead tree in his parent's front yard that he and his sister Lena painted. If I was a mormon and could convince him to marry me I would. As things are I only see him once every 5 or 6 months, always by chance.

Another drive through the desert, this time to Vegas for Interbike with Davey and Gary in the vw bus.

This image represents and interesting moment for me. This is along the strip in Vegas. I had just left a bar where I had danced my heart out, always a good thing for me, but where I had also allowed myself to feel some pretty powerful emotions of detachment and healing. Cool. I was walking home barefoot in a kind of muted, peaceful state of mind and I saw this construction fence and the people walking and felt like I was watching some kind of billboard where the people decided to just walk out of the advertisement.

Another drive through the desert, this time home from Vegas but along highway 89, a route I've never seen.

Literally a double rainbow, both of them full. Pretty. Still driving home from Vegas.

Also driving home from Vegas. Vegas was fun. I don't like the city at all, 4 days every 20 years or so is probably enough. I won a bunch of stuff for being a fast girl on a bike. That was fun. I like bikes.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first meeting for the SaltCycle team. Yes, we are starting a bike team. It's going to be sweet, racing on old steel bikes and being nice to each other and not spending tons of money on stuff that people think they need to be fast. It's going to be so much fun. Let the training begin. This pic features Evan, Victor, Graham, and Morgan, plus a couple I don't really know yet.

Alivia, Gary, Kristen, and JT. This team is going to be so fun.

Tom, Naresh, Wilson. More to come on this as time goes on.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She's a beautiful lady. If I can be anything like her when I grow up I'll be happy. These are 4 of her 6 grandkids. So cute. (5! can you spy him?)

For now, ciao. I'm happy and well.

A week's adventure by bike - Italy

2011-07-31T02:37:00.001-06:00

(I know the pictureless paragraphs look boring, but the words tell of all sorts of beauty. So take heart. Pictures will come soon.)

It has only been one week since I left my adopted family in Savignone to venture off by bicycle. I've met some great people and seen some beautiful land.

It was really hard to say goodbye to the family I was staying with for two weeks. I blinked back tears (sneakily) as we drove away from the farm to the train station, Claudio waving goodbye from the driveway. I less sneakily blinked back tears at the station as I said goodbye to Renza. What wonderful parents. Marta and I took the trenino, a tiny train, to Genova, and bought some paniers and a helmet and a few other bikey things at this euro-outdoorsy place called Decathlon. We loaded up my bags, I gave her my trusty green backpack and told her to love it, then after one last gelato together we said goodbye. I love that family so much.

I hung out In Genova for too long because there was a cool "manifestazione" going on. Ten years ago when there was a G8 meeting in Genova a young man was killed by the police during a protest. So last Saturday there was a huge gathering of all types of beautiful alternative Italians and they sang songs, danced, gave speeches, etc. Cool. I ended up playing
soccer (with some wadded up paper) with a group of kids for a while, then started asking around for campgrounds in the area. Genova is a terrible place to camp, I found out.

It was dark by the time I gave up the idea that someone would just say "why don't you just come sleep at our place!" I got on my bike and headed east, not knowing quite where I was going/looking for (I've been reminded so many times this week how much clearer my mind is when I am on my bike). Genova is terribly long, 42 km or something, stretched along the coast, so it felt like I was never going to make it out of the city. After a half hour or so a storm started rumbling over the sea. I climbed up this road and suddenly the sea was right below me. I stopped and stared into the pitch black eternity, listening to thunder and crashing waves, then this beautiful, intense purple lighting struck over the whole sky and the sea and cliffs and clouds lit up in a stunning, completely terrifying way. I sat there watching for a few minutes blown away by the beauty and terror I felt all at once.

Soon after this the coast was hit by a ridiculous rainstorm. Monstrous. I was practically swimming on my bike. Before I got too soaked I stopped at a train station and hid under a tunnel with some stranded scooterists. They offered to call a taxi for me because my situation seemed so dire, but I laughed and said I'd be fine. By the time it stopped raining enough to continue on it was nearly one o'clock in the morning and my only goal was to find somewhere to sleep.

A couple kilometers down the road I found a camping sign and followed it up a mountain but of course when I got there the reception was closed and it was a strange campground so I decided not to sneak in. Instead I went further up the hill and found a perfect spot off the road to throw down my tarp, pull out my sleeping bag, and get a few hours of sleep.

The next day, Sunday, was full of some beautiful climbs and descents into picturesque costal-mountain villages like Rapallo, where I stopped for a nap on the beach midday. At the top of the next big climb I stopped to draw a picture when a fellow biketourer pulled up behind me! He was the first I had seen. His name was Joost, a 40 something year old artist from Holland. As we descended into the next town my shifter cable got mad so we rode a little while together then found a campground to split.

Monday I bought a new shifter cable, we fixed it outside a cafe, then we rode the second most beautiful day, from somewhere near Lavagna to Lerici, just past La Spezia. It was a day of gorgeous climbs through cloudy mountains, over a pass at the top (660 meters above sea level) then back down to the port city La Spezia. We rode about 85 km (52 miles) that day. We split another campground, this one right on the cliffs, a private access to the sea and everything. Straight out of the movies. Beautiful. Italy is so romantic. Seriously.

The next morning, Tuesday, I set off alone towards Pisa. It was a simple flat ride, most of it along the coast, usually on some kind of bike path or another. Flat is nice, but I'm learning to accept the fact that rides with climbs are SO much better. More fun, rewarding, beautiful, etc. That day I met a couple hitchhikers. They were headed to Venice and had started in Berlin. They were part of a huge race with 200 other people. Sooo cool. Then suddenly I stumbled upon the leaning tower of Pisa and I literally laughed out loud when I saw it. It's so funny, just sitting there all crooked. I hung out for a while, trying to draw and write a bit, mostly laughing at how many people were doing the same 'pretend like I'm holding up the tower' pose, hundreds of funny tourists posed karate style all over the lawn.

I spotted a boy with a loaded bike so I asked him if he speaks english and for the next 7 hours we talked and talked, somehow finding drinks, a campground, and dinner between all the talking. Stefano is a wonderful twenty something year old from Firenze (Florence) and we got along swell. It's a shame we were heading in opposite directions.

Wednesday was kind of ridiculous, but I forced myself to laugh through The worst bits of it. I was going from Pisa to Firenze (Florence) and it was supposed to be about 95 km (60 miles). Somewhere about 40 km down the road I took a wrong turn. I still don't get it, I was following a sign that said Firenze. I'm stubborn about directions and signs and stuff, so it's hard to accept that I made such an obvious mistake. Meanwhile it started raining, which was actually quite nice. At first. Soon it turned into a not-so-nice flood and I was soaked to the bone. By the time I got back to the literal intersection/roundabout (Italy is PACKED with roundabouts. They are sooo functional and awesome here) where I had made the wrong turn I was drenched and tired and a little bummed and had gone about 80 km but only 40 in the correct direction. Ha! The rain was still coming down strong so I headed for the nearest station and took the last half of the journey by train. Defeated.

In Firenze I changed my clothes then spent the evening exploring. It was beautiful and big. I almost got to stay at Stefano's place but his roommates got nervous about a stranger and bailed last second so around 11 pm I found myself a little bit lost looking for a campsite Stefano told me about. (I have found that things are always harder when it's late and I'm tired. So I try to make the bigger decisions in life when the sun is up and after eating some nice baguette with gorgonzola and nutella.) I eventually found the awesome campsite up on a hill and decided to treat myself to two nights in the adjoining hostel. Classy Jessie.

I spent the whole next day, Thursday, riding and walking around Firenze. It's simply amazing how old and big and beautiful everything is. That evening I found the public library and spent a couple hours there, right downtown but void of all the tourists, and happened to be there for happy hour (at the library! On the third floor outdoor terrace! How awesome is Italy?) and for a piano concert of some kind. It felt good to just sit and relax for a while.

Friday was my number one fave day of riding. I was getting anxious in the morning, trying to think through coming home early and what traveling I'd still try to do, etc etc. I felt crippled with indecision and worry so I thought, 'hey, just get on your bike, silly. You'll figure it out.' So I got on my bike and within a minute I felt so much better. Endorphins. They're real. I've been listening to my iPod as I ride the last 2 or 3 days and I've really enjoyed it. I don't usually do so at home for safety reasons, but I've found European drivers are pretty aware of cyclists and I'm usually on smaller roads. It's really interesting for me to feel the different energy certain songs or artists give me. Fun fun.

The ride from Firenze to Siena was absolutely incredible. I rode along SS222, a wonderful road that winds up and down and over and around and through the most beautiful landscape of Italy. In my opinion. Vineyards of all shapes and layouts covered every hillside. I had to restrain from stopping every time the road turned a bend to take a picture or to just stare. If anyone out there has only one day to ride a bike anywhere in Italy, ride from Firenze to Siena (But start like 10+ km out from Firenze. Getting out of cities sucks). It was super challenging, and even if I didn't have a loaded bike and fatty mountainbike tires it still would have given me a run for my money. I got to Siena after 75 km, completely exhausted and happy, found a campground, and treated myself to a big pizza and my fave peach iced tea.

Today, Saturday, I spent about 5 hours in Siena. It's easy when bike touring to get somewhere, sleep, then move on. But Siena has a university, so in my mind I had to see if the city was cool enough to live in if I study in Italy in the future. For a cyclist, Siena is absolute hell. But a beautiful hell that I'd totally be willing to suffer in. The old sections of town, up on the top of the hill, are huge and completely alive. And not just tourist-style alive like some Italian towns. These old parts, which house the Siena Duomo, an amazing huge plaza, and tons of other stuff, are completely enclosed by massive, old city walls. We're talking 30, 40 foot walls, crazy thick and beautiful. Blows my mind. The number one best thing, though, is that hardly any cars enter beyond these walls. Wow. Like an entire huge city center almost car free. In fact, the huge plaza that radiates out from the town hall was the first European city center to become a pedestrian plaza (1966 I think). I'm guessing that early decision heavily influenced the transportation planning for the surrounding area. It's quite bizarre, I don't think there's a single inch of Siena where you could set a ball without it rolling in some direction or another. Elevation changes all over the place. I could spend months exploring the thousands of little streets and connections in Siena. An urban explorer's dream. And that huge plaza, I could sit and people-watch there for ages.

Anyways, I concluded that yes, I'd live in Siena. It was my favorite place in Italy thus far. Hard to beat.

I've decided to cut my trip off and go home for my brother's wedding in just over a week. I feel good about this, as I don't have as much money as I want to have and it'd be good to have a few bucks when I get home. I am already making plans to return next summer, teach with ACLE again, then travel through Germany, Czech, and Hungary. Having decided this I don't know when I'll be able to catch a plane home because I fly standby. Maybe never. Tourist season. But I realized I should try to get up to Amsterdam pretty soon to be ready to get on any plane with an empty seat. So as I type this out I'm sitting on a train to Rome (of course I'll hit Rome before saying goodbye to Italy) and in a couple days I'll head back up through France.

Today two trains were cancelled so while stuck for 4 hours in a transfer town called Chiusi (pronounced Q-Z) I first bought some food at a market then followed a sign with a bike on it, having no idea where it was taking me. I saw a bike and I followed faithfully. It led me about 8 km down a gorgeous dirt road (thankyou mountainbike tires) surrounded by incredible farmland to a little lake, probably called Lago di Chiusi, where the sun was setting and locals were fishing for carp. I was so happy to be there. Bikes are so cool; Instead of sitting tired or frustrated at a train station for 4 hours I went on a fantastic ride through pretty countryside to a peaceful lake in the middle of pretty green and purple hills. Life is easy sometimes.

I hope to upload some pictures onto this post asap, but hopefully you were able to imagine some of what I've seen. Some of it is impossible to imagine. Even the pictures won't tell it quite right. So it goes.

Bike tour through Europe! Go!

2011-07-22T17:42:00.000-06:00

Check out the cute little old bike I bought today for my tour. I think it'll be a good companion on the road. Let's hope. That link will bring you to a SLC bike blog I am a part of (check out the "who we are" tab to see some of the other contributors). Wish me luck family and friends. I'll update again when the first few days of my bike adventure have passed! Ciao!

Savignone, Italy; The End of Part 1

2011-07-20T19:54:00.001-06:00

It’s been about 2.5 week since I last posted and many wonderful things have happened. It is hard to make an update covering that much time so I’ll post some pics, write about them, and hope that this covers a lot.

I spent 2 weeks in Bernareggio, near Milan (Milano). I wrote about the first week in my last post, and the second week went by incredibly fast. I was teaching tiny tiny kids, and this is a picture that one of them made for me. It say 'Gessi da Gabri' which is 'Jessie by Gabri' (Jessie, spelled as you would in Italian, is Gessi. They don't use the letter J. G makes a J sound when followed by an E or an I. Italian is cool). I liked working with the little kids. I didn't think I'd be good at it because

Italians are so touchy and want to hold hands and be held all the time but I found it quite natural for me to be carrying kids on my shoulders. One of my favorite boys, Elia, was always sitting on my lap and climbing on my back and holding my hand. It made me feel really important somehow. The little kids had a hard time at first understanding that I didn't speak or understand Italian, but eventually they caught on and would help each other try to explain to me, mostly through actions, what they needed. I liked those kids.

One day in Bernareggio we went to a small farm behind the school. It was awesome. The animals were happy and the farmer was spectacular and I wanted to marry him and stay there forever. He showed us how to make cottage cheese :)

My teammates, Tony from Canada and Anjuli from California. We were trying to be gangsta but Tony just looks funny and I was too lazy to actually spell anything with my hands. Tony was my buddy for 4 straight weeks. We walked to and from school together everyday for the last weeks and really became good friends. We parted ways when I headed to Savignone and he went off traveling.

My last night in Bernareggio I got a ride about 5 km out to the next little town to meet up with 6 or 7 other ACLE tutors at a neighboring camp. The two in the middle are Ian (from South Africa) and Will (from England), friends from orientation my first week in Italy. It was really fun to see them one last time. Because I was the foreigner in this group of tutors we spent a bit of the evening talking about Utah and Mormonism. Being from Utah this conversation comes up quite often. And I actually love it. Most people know very very little about Mormons or know only what they've learned watching Big Love. So it's cool to talk about what Mormonism is in reality. And people are crazy interested. Luckily I like talking.

After two weeks in Bernareggio I was moved to a one-week camp in Savignone, a small village near Genoa (Genova). I happened to meet up with the other two tutors I'd be working with at a station near Milano and we traveled the rest of the way together. Andrew from South Africa and Mari from Ireland. We had a lot of fun together. When we got to Savignone we literally stumbled off the train onto the platform (mostly due to Mari's completely broken suitcase) and into the arms of our new camp director, Stefania. We met our new host families and went our ways. The first night my host-sister Marta brought us to this annual traditional wedding ceremony in a neighboring village. It was so great, fire dancers, medieval dancing, jesters, the whole shebang. Welcome to Savignone!

The following day, Sunday July 10, we went to Cinque Terre. If you've never heard of it, google it. It's incredible, but sadly becoming more touristy every year (as if I'm exempt from this growing 'tourist' mass). Cinque Terre, 'five lands,' is a chain of 5 little villages that all sit on the coast between chunks of the mountian. If I wasn't in a hurry I'd take the time to write about it properly here, but it would take a lot of energy. We spent about 8 or 9 hours there.

We were 5 at the beginning of the day, Me Mari Andrew and my two host siblings, Franco and Marta, but my siblings and I broke off early on. This is them, Franco is 12 and Marta is 19. I love these guys. This host family reminds me of my own family and I am very comfortable with them. Marta looks like my sister Michelle all the time.

Side note: I've learned this about myself: I don't feel homesick. I don't really miss people. But I have said, many many times in the last 8 weeks, that this person reminds me of my brother, this person of my sister, this person of my mother, etc etc. I think part of being good at adapting to new places and people is my tendency to associate those around me with the people that I love. Instead of thinking about my family and friends back home, I feel like I am surrounded by them everyday. Of course none of these people are in reality that similar to my family or friends, but I feel that comfortable with them. It's nice :)

(I'm trying to get better at the whole taking-pictures-of-myself-in-front-of-pretty-things thing, but it's pretty hard.) The hike from the first village, Monterosso, to the second, Vernazza, was pretty intense. I ended up ditching my host siblings because I wanted to walk to the 5th village by the end of the day and they were content to swim at one or two places. This pic is a view of the second village after about an hour and a half of hiking along beautiful mountain trails with plenty of steps. Also of note, the america themed swimming suit my first host family bought for me. Ha. Way to look american, eh?

This is the back side of one of the villages. Literally built right into the stone cliffs. Pretty amazing. I loved spending most of the day by myself. I need that time and hadn't had enough of it in the previous month.

Manarola, the 4th village. I spent a lot of time at this one. Those rock at the bottom provide some excellent swimming and cliff-jumping (but nothing compared to Flaming Gorge) and I loved the way the vineyards (Cinque Terre is famous for its wine) turn into rows of colorful houses.

My version of Manarola. I'm thinking of coloring it, but I feel a little cheap doing so not on-site. We'll see. I think it needs it.

This is my home of the last week and a half. I live with Claudio and Renza and two of their three kids, Marta and Franco. Claudio built this home and has been running a small family farm here for 30 years. It's so beautiful. I stay in a bedroom detatched from the house in the same structure where the cow (and calf, which was born the 3rd or so night I was here - I'm supposed to name her but haven't yet) and chickens live. They have six sheep, a dog, and a billion rabbitts. Their garden is beautiful and produces the best cherry tomatoes in all of Italy. I like it here.

These are taped to the front door. This family reminds me of a mix between the Boing! house and my sister Sara. I have felt more comfortable and more like myself with this family and in this town than anywhere I've been in Europe thus far.

This is a view of the village, Savignone, where we held summer camp. We were outside the whole week (except thursday when a rainstorm turned our little park into a lake) at a park next to the town hall where everything within 5 or so km functions out of. It was great there, so many locals would walk by and stop to watch all the little italian kids doing funny things and singing funny songs in English. This camp had a really good energy. It was the first time this town has had this program so the kids were really excited about everything and were really mature and respectful.

My host sister Marta and me. I really like Marta. We have spent a lot of time together, going to Genova or camping or hanging out with her friends or hiking up to a nearby castle. We talk and talk about everything from religion to the difference between "shadow" and "shade." I am trying to convince her to study in Utah. She is crazy smart and is starting University in September. She will be studying Chemistry.

Franco and Marta up at Senarega, a tiny old village from the 12th century. Everything is old and awesome.

The crew from Savignone. This week I taught the older group, 12-14 year olds. 5 boys and 2 girls. I loved them. On the back row we have Andrew from South Africa, then one of his boys next to him, then my kid Andrea, a quiet kid but brilliant and a natural leader, then Elena who was cute and mostly just flirted with the boys the whole time, then Numa (Davide) who was kind and good-humored and tried really hard to find the right English words, then Rebecca who was reserved but smart, then Nicola who was gentle and quick and happy, then Edoardo who was small and fast and crazy helpful, then finally Franco, my brother, who will probably grow up to be awesome, always carrying around graphic novels in his fannypack. I loved this group and wished the camp was 2 weeks. It was the best camp of the summer.

Stefania, the camp director. Stefania is a beautiful lady (who happened to remind me of my oldest sister Deb) with 2 daughters and a wonderful husband named Stefano. I love this woman. I want to be like her when I grow up.

Mari from Ireland, Stefania, and Andrew from South Africa. Killer team right here. We laughed a lot, usually at each other. This camp was the least stressful. But this whole town is quite relaxed. I think it's in the air. And trees. And everything beautiful.

On Friday night after english camp was over we went to Genova for dinner. Genova is an interesting city, kind of stuck in history. This is a building near the port and I couldn't get enough of the paint job. The only thing real here is the glass of the windows. Everything else is painted.

This and the glass biosphere in the picture above are by Renzo Piano, a famous contemporary architect from Genova. This is called Il Bigo (shipyard crane). I really liked this, especially when the sun had just set and the colors were perfect. It looked like a strange skeleton of an old ship.

The crew: the three tutors, our camp director, and various members from our host families.

This cathedral, for example, houses a bomb from WWI that landed inside the church but never went off.

Christopher Columbus's house. Well, garden, to be exact. Crazy.

I love this building. I love it at night and I love it in the day. It's round and beautiful. I especially love the strange rectangles that connect the columns.

This is the land north of Genoa where I've been living the last week and a half. It is truely incredible. This is the view from an old castle. I have never seen greener mountains.

It's hard to see, but on the bottom left of the cliff between Franco and myself is a castle, which you'll see in the next pic. Timer photo for the win!

Crazy old castle on the cliffs. Of course.

Yesterday Marta and I took this tiny train to Genova and it chugged and screeched along the mountain-sides over tiny villages and through beautiful green mountains until it snaked around one last turn and out popped Genova and the sea. So cool. Such a dense city.

Marta and I had lunch with Nona (Italian for grandmother) then the three of us took a bus to the cemetery. It was rainy and beautiful and I've never seen anything like this cemetery. Beautiful statues and monuments and mini churches and tombs. This statue is the Statue of Faith, tall and beautiful.

I like rain. Probably beacause I am not yet on my bicycle.

In the middle is my host family's eldest daugher, Chiara, and on the ends her two friends. We met them for happy hour in Genova and sat under a big yellow umbrella in the rain.

Hi Genova

I love at night when my host parents are walking around in their bathrobes. The relationship between Marta and her father is one of my favorite things to watch here. He is the most loving man in the world.

Last night this beautiful lightning storm lit up my room for a good hour or so. I could have shut my awesome operable shutters, but lightning is really cool, so I didn't.

One more drawing of where I'm living, in the comune of Savignone, Italy.

I've finished teaching and now I am looking for a bike. In the next few days I'll begin my journey through Italy and Germany by bicycle. I have no idea what is to come but I can't wait. Until next time, Ciao!

Week One in Bernareggio, Italy

2011-07-03T16:02:00.001-06:00

Blogs are funny because they have to start somewhere. I guess I’ll start with now. In this moment I am sitting on a pink couch, that funny fuzzy type of material (which probably had it’s boom in the 70’s or so), wanting to write a blogpost but mostly being distracted by motogp, motorbike racing on tv. It's incredible. I probably won't ever have a car, but I wouldn't mind having a motorcycle when I'm all grown up.

I am in Bernareggio, Italy. Bear-neh-ray-gio. Trill the second ‘r’ a little bit. Yes, perfect. Perfecto. Italian is interesting. And difficult. I am beginning to understand more of what I hear, but composing my own sentences seems impossible. And I feel like anyone could understand as much as I do. English shares a lot of Latin words with Italian, so many words are recognizable or guessable. But the speed at which they talk is crazy. Quick Italian lesson: Verbs in Italian are conjugated, similar to Spanish. And there are regular and irregular verbs, of course, and some of the more useful/common verbs are irregular, so you just have to memorize every version of the verb. Then there is present past and future, which I haven’t even begun to figure out . But I’m learning. An example of a regular verb: parlare; to speak: parlo (I speak), parli (you speak), parla (s/he speaks), parliamo (we speak), parlate (you (plural) speak), parlano (they speak). Non parlo Italiano. Oh, plus there are 3 types of regular verbs, -are, -ere, and -ire. So it’s tough. But fun. It makes me want to stay in Italy for the few months I have here rather than move on to other countries. But I want to ride my bike through Germany and Czech. So I’ll have to study Italian in the states for a couple years then come back. If I wasn’t teaching English all day every day I would be learning much faster. But so it goes.

Bernareggio is a tiny town halfway between Milano and Lecco in northern Italy. In the distance to the north are the Italian alps, the tail end of the Swiss Alps. My host parents are Nello and Lucia, sort of typical small town Italians. I like them and feel pretty comfortable here. My host father
has lived here his entire life, his father and mother still living a block from the church at the center of town. I am glad to have lived in Cernusco with a family who was more familiar feeling and who spoke English pretty well before having lived here. This family does not speak English as well, which is great for my Italian, and is more traditional Italian (Italian house-wife style and everything) and it is less familiar to me, more old fashioned. I am happy here, I have just stepped back and watched how things work. They have a 22 year old son living somewhere else and a 12 year old daughter, Silvia, who goes to English camp with me every day. She isn't my student this time, which I prefer. Today when I woke up Lucia was working in the yard while Nello was cleaning his 'Moto.' He loves his motorcycle. I've ridden on it twice. So fun.

(backside of the church from the balcony of my host-father's childhood home)

(front side of the church, the center of town. The bells go off all the time, not only every hour and such, but sometimes ringing out entire songs at quarter after. I haven't figured out the logic yet, but I can hear them from my bedroom.)

(I drew this today right after church let out.)

This camp could not be more different than my first camp. We have about 40 students between ages 6 and 14, we are teaching in classrooms in a school, there are only 4 tutors, our camp director likes to be independent (which means sometimes she disappears and we aren't sure where she is), and our kids are much less insane, it seems. In general. One week down with this camp, one week to go. We are losing some kids so we only get 3 tutors next week. My fellow tutors last week were Tony from Toronto, who I've been with for almost a month now, Isabelle from Montreal who has moved to another camp this week, and Anjuli from California. We've been a good team, practically running the entire camp ourselves. Usually the camp directors have a little more structure. I love our director as a person, she's crazy and fun, and I hope to be funny like her when I’m older, but as a director she is a little illogical and can't think on her feet. Tony is done teaching after this camp so he has kind of checked out a little bit and this last week was Isabelle and Anjuli's first camp, so I've kind of stepped up to help make things work when the director falls through. It has been much more work than the last camp, but I've learned a lot.

(Anthony from Canada (we're buddies now. It's great and lucky that we get along so well), and the two hipsters Isabelle from Canada and Anjuli from California)

In Cernusco I taught the oldest possible group, the green group. This time I'm teaching the white group, the youngest possible. Wowza, what a change. I just laughed when I got stuck with that group, thirteen 5-7 year olds, and thought "Why not? Bring it on!" But I was terrified. I went from having conversations with my kids to teaching numbers, animals, and colors, and soon realized that a couple of these kids shouldn't even be in white yet. Luckily I have a great helper, Lorenzo, because some of the kids (bambini, in Italian) can't seem to grasp that I don't speak Italian, no matter how many times I say 'non parli Italiano!' or 'non capisco non capisco!'

(My helper, Lorenzo. He's an Italian punk. He's great. He does motorcross and likes rap. It takes him 30 mins to do his hair. He is a helper "because I love kids and I want to improve my English." Here he is coloring Davide's book for some reason. Cutie)

(two of my boys, Edoardo and Davide, being crazy cute. Oh yeah and Andrea in the back, being funny)

(One morning the 4 of us tutors were in a room talking before the day started when some tiny voice said, "Ciao!" We look over to see three of my fave little boys, Andrea, Elia, and Davide, being completely adorable tiny tots.)

I haven't had very much experience with kids before this. I babysat often until I was 16 or so and I have little brothers and nieces and nephews, but I haven't had this much contact with kids for a long time, if ever. This camp goes from 9 to 5 everyday. So many hours. I didn't know what it would be like, how I would be as a teacher, as a friend of the kids, if I would hate children or love them. But in the last week I have heard this several times: 'You must really love kids.' This is usually said when the 13 tinies are running around going crazy and I'm calmly organizing the next game, not worried at all about the moment a couple minutes away when I have to convince them that playing my game is more fun than climbing out the window. I have learned some things about myself this week. Maybe I'll talk about a few of them.

I have learned that I am really patient. Which is pretty nice I guess. I am patient with adults who don't speak English (after all isn't it me who doesn't speak Italian?), I'm patient with indecisive tutors, and most of all I'm patient with kids. In the end I don't know if it's patience or if it's some kind of distracted fascination, but I am very slow to anger. I think kids are incredible. They are so creative and it's in the simplest ways. I loved when I set up 13 chairs in a little semi-circle for some kind of game and little Edoardo started crawling under the chair legs, following the curve like a tunnel, and 4 other kids followed. Crawl through, run back and crawl through again. I sat and watched them for a minute or so, forgetting about whatever color game I was trying to organize, and thought about how great it is to find joy in something like a semi-circle of chairs. How do we teach/raise kids in a way that they never lose that creativity? I don't know. It scares me. But I have realized that I love kids and I'm not afraid at all to have my own someday.

(For a colors lesson we tore up magazines. You should have seen that classroom floor. But I can trick my kids into thinking cleaning up is cool so it took like 30 seconds to clean up. This is Stefano, Edoardo, Giulia, and Sara)

(Edouardo, Elia, and Davide. It's pretty obvious that I like these boys a lot. Elia isn't as evil as he looks here. He always sits on my lap and holds my hand and shows me how many stickers he has earned.)

I have learned that I get along well with kids, especially boys. This is not because I am patient, necessarily, but because I am a kid. I hope to always be a kid. This week I felt the adult Jessie and the kid Jessie have a conversation about what to do in a conflicted moment and the kid Jessie won: On Thursday we played water games. It turned into kids filling up buckets and water bottles and plastic bags and just soaking each other. Of course. A couple of the other tutors were stressed about it and were trying to yell at the kids to stop or something and I tried to follow suit, telling kids to stay on the grass and away from the school or whatever I could say to make it look like I was being responsible. I was laughing at the kids and the tutors, at how silly everything is all the time, but didn’t want to make the other tutors mad. I understood that the parents might be mad about how wet their kids were and that the games didn’t go as well as we wanted them to and that we needed to be careful not to make a mess of the school and blah blah blah, but meanwhile I was the target of several kids and while I’d be telling one kid not to go inside with his water balloon I’d get hit by a bucket of water from behind by another. As I watched Albi run away triumphantly after getting me pretty cleverly for the third time I glanced over at one tutor who was throwing her hands in the air in frustration and I had to decide if I wanted to be unnaturally stressed over such a fun and funny situation just to be more ‘responsible’ or if I was going to let myself do what I wanted to do and get revenge on Albi. So I smiled, tried to comfort the other tutor with a “Hey it’s okay, water games always end like this!” and sprinted to the fountain to get as much ammo as possible. The problem is I like having fun. I like dumping water all over little kids. I like running around and climbing on stuff and playing soccer. And I’m going to continue liking those things as long as I can.

(Albi, one of my fave kids (not a student of mine))

From an email I wrote recently [sorry 'chell, our private convos are going public] :
I have learned so much about myself. It's interesting. But there is so much going on that I'm sure these experiences will continue to teach me for months and years to come. I have learned, most recently on my mind, that I run away from things that are difficult or that I don't like doing. I run, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. I am aware of it, though, more than I was before (it's pretty obvious what's going on psychologically when I'm literally sprinting away from a group of little italian kids) and I think I will be able to recognize those moments now and challenge myself to stick around, physically mentally or emotionally, and grow. It scares the hell out of me, thinking about trying to keep my feet planted when I really want to bail, but I wanna try. Especially in these situations. For example, today our camp director was supposed to be back with some ice cream by 4:30 so we were doing an activity with our 40 kids until then, but come 4:30 she wasn't back yet. So in that moment when the activity was over and the kids just kind of stood there staring at us and we were looking at each other like 'now what??' I said, 'I'll run and see if she's back yet!' as if that would help at all, because of course she'd come to us the moment she got back (and she did), but I was too afraid of thinking on my tired little feet in that moment at the end of the day. I was too afraid to be creative and spontaneous, to take the lead in some kind of fun/funny thing for the kids. So I ran. Fast. Tomorrow I don't want to do that. I want to do the things I fear and hate to do. [That one's for you, Mom]. It will be so hard. But I will do it.

I have tried. I haven't physically run away like I did that day, and I am challenging my brain to push through that fearful moment when I don't want to be somewhere for whatever reason, but it is so hard for me. I'm working on in. Give me time. It will take years to really see this one through. I'm excited.

I have also learned that I am almost 100% optimistic, through and through. Isabelle, the tutor from Montreal, is more critical and cynical, and when someone like me is with someone like her our respective characteristics are even more apparent. It’s so funny. She wanted to kill me a few times for how annoyingly positive I am about everything, but mostly we all just laughed about our opposing styles. We really got along quite well, it was only in certain situations that we’d clash in funny ways. I wouldn’t even call it a clash. But there I am being optimistic I guess. On Friday night ten of us (4 tutors, 1 helper, 1 camp director, 2 assistants, 2 extras) went to Milan. It was fun/funny. So many things “went wrong,” but I think everything is funny all the time. So ten of us drove in two cars, it took over an hour to park, we missed our reservation by almost 2 hours, it was almost 10:30 by the time we had dinner, and as Tony claimed, “This is probably one of the worst meals I’ve had in Italy.” But it was beautiful! It was raining on and off and the sky was beautiful and there were hundreds of people on every street and we ate along one of the canals and we laughed and sang and danced. We got gelato and crepes and walked along the canal for a while then finally left Milan around 2 in the morning. Just to top it off it took an hour to drive the 25 minutes back to Bernareggio because of an accident that had the freeway at a standstill (but at least it wasn’t our car that got smashed, right?)

(the pretty sky in Milano)

(Milano)

(the crew in Milano)

(pretty pretty)

Yesterday, Saturday (Sabato), I went to Bergamo (about a 40 minute train ride from here) by myself. It was beautiful. I was there for about 6 hours. I had been told to catch the bus outside the train station to go up to Bergamo Città Alta, the old part of the city up on a hilltop. As I left the station I saw the boring bus and decided to just start walking. I walked and walked, all the way to the top where an old castle stands. It is an incredible city. The whole upper city is surrounded by old walls, incredibly huge and well built. The views from the top are beautiful, sprawling flat humid skies in one direction, green hills and mountains in the other. I was so happy to be alone and to be walking for hours and to be exploring everything I wanted to explore. I didn’t get a map so I just had to rely on my spatial reasoning to find my way around. It was amazing. On the way down from the top I went along these beautiful backside-of-the-mountain switchbacks that reminded me a little bit of Sundance Canyon and was passed by dozens of bikers, road and mountain, climbing the beautiful green mountain to the castle. If I come back through this area when I have a bike I’d love to do the same. Lower Bergamo is more modern and city-like, every other building being hundreds of years old. I could definitely live in Bergamo, and I am not going to say that about every place I see. Promise.

(Bergamo, from halfway up the hill. T'was seriously one of the greatest little cities. Maybe I was just in a really good mood all day. Who knows.)

(from an old castle at the top of Bergamo Città Alta. I couldn't get enough of the views from up here, so I drew it.)

(Ink pen and (chalk) pastels. Took me about 45 mins. While drawing the hour changed and from the top of the hill I heard 5 or so different churches ring their bells, all a few seconds apart from each other.)

(this was all over Bergamo. Sometimes with the writing, sometimes just the red hand.)

(Wandered upon this beautiful plaza in the upper city of Bergamo. Funny how good old cities naturally lead you to the right places. I think I hit much of what's on the what-you-should-see-if-you-only-have-a-few-hours-in-Bergamo list without having a map or that list. Thank you European planning.)

(Inside the white church on the left in the pic above.)

This post is getting way too long and I could write for another two hours. I am happy and well and living and learning. I enjoying teaching. It is hard work and I look forward to buying a bike (bicicletta) and burning off all the pounds I’m surely gaining while riding through beautiful parts of Europe, but I am glad to be where I am in this moment, pink fuzzy couch and all.

(Oh yeah, on Thursday we all went to a concert at a church on a hill in a nearby town called Montevecchia. It was a cute little town and a cute little hill. The concert was the Jeugland Youth Choir from South Africa and it was spectacular.)

(the choir, the church, everything was beautiful and echoey. Some fun songs, some pretty ones.)

(The cute and pretty church, probably older than the US.)

(From the top of the hill after the concert with Isabelle and Anjuli.)

(This evening I went with my host family to Parco Adda Nord, a beautiful park and river. This bridge was incredible. Made of steel in 1889, spans 266 meters, is 80 meters tall, took 300 men to build, etc etc. Couldn't get enough of it.)

(such a beautiful bridge. It carries cars on top and trains in the middle. Think about that load transfering between all these pretty members! Ha. But seriously. I like bridges. And engineering.)

(My host family Lucia, Silvia, and Nello.)

(Host mother and sister at Parco Adda Nord. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.)

Ciao Cernusco!

2011-06-25T04:18:00.158-06:00

Saturday (Sabato) June 25. So much to say with no time to say it. Huge bummer. ~~I will add photos to this post later, hopefully :)~~

I am about to go to the train station here in Cernusco to head to my next camp. It is near here, half way between Milano and Lecco. I don't know much about the camp yet, but it is much smaller, about 40 students, so there are only 4 tutors this time, and one of them is Anthony, someone I've been with since orientation. I'm happy about that. But there are so many known unknowns, like my class, my camp director, my new host family, the town. It's exciting and terrifying. It's amazing how comfortable
I feel here after two weeks. I love my host family so much. Last night most of the tutors went out to party with some of the helpers in a nearby town but I stayed home and went out with my family. I love them. As my dear friend Rachelle pointed out, what was originally one of the coolest parts of this program --moving around every week or two-- is now potentially the hardest/saddest. But that said, my next host family could be miserable and I might be more than ready to leave. This family set the bar high :) I am excited though.

Last sunday I went to Milano with my host mother and sister and with Ruth, another tutor, and her host mother and sister. At the end of orientation a couple weeks back we watched a short animation about Italy and some of the culturaly funny things here. One subject it noted was driving. I didn't really believe the film, showing cars just going absolutely wherever they wanted on the road, but after driving to Milano with an Italian driver... It was so funny. I was only a little bit scared, mostly entertained. For a while we were on this two-laned road that everyone just decided to make a three lane road. No one uses their blinkers, they just go wherever whenever. It was seriously like bumper cars at an amusment park, minus the bumping. Milano was nice, we just stayed in the city center, mostly on the pedestrian street (Via Dante) that connects the Duomo to Cairoli Castello, an old castle. It was beautiful. I like cities. And old cities. We just walked around, got gelato, watched people, etc. I hope to post pics of this soon, no time right now.

The second week of camp was great. The kids are more comfortable, which is bad, they start to take advantage of us, but we also can break through to some better friendships. I can't remember if I've said this already, but I learned very quickly that I would rather the kids like me and want to be my friend than to feel like I'm their wonderful teacher. I have also learned that I am much better with boys than with girls, of all ages. I want to work on that next week. I want to be more relatable for the girls. But I'm sort of not, so it's sort of hard. I am a tomboy, compared to most of the tutors I've met and especially compared to the typical Italian girl. I had many parents talk to me after camp some days or after the final day yesterday and say that their little boy was so excited and completely blown away that one of the girl tutors was good at sports. It is embarrassing how much confidence I gained when a tiny little 7 year old smiled at me timidly when I passed him the ball, or how good I felt when the boys would call my name, "Jessie! Jessie!" to come play sports with them. It was like being picked first for kickball teams. When I'm back in the states feeling intimidated by hipsters I'll just recall that feeling, the great emotion of being something fun and exciting for these little kids. I really loved a a few of the kids. It was hard not to play favorites. I treated my own students equally, for the most part, but even that is difficult. I loved the challege of working with the class bully (which turned into two class bullies the second week) and I realized pretty early on that some of the boys just had ADD, which isn't really recognized very much over here.

On the last day of camp we did a final show, a 5ish minute skit involving all of my students where they each say at least one line to kind of show the level of English they are at. The parents come and we give them little diplomas and certificates at the end. It was a lot of fun. Our class did a video game skit involving my fave Super Mario Bros. Cuties. The second week was fun because we got to practice our skits a lot and they really love memorizing lines and making things perfect, even the difficult kids.

I think I will be at the next camp for two weeks and I don't know what kind of computer access I will have, but I will try to keep updating as I go. I love it here and am happy. I am learning Italian and really like the language, even though the whole masculine/feminine/singular/plural stuff sucks. Maybe my next family won't speak any English and I'll have to learn it even faster! Nothing is known, which is great. Ciao!

UPDATE Wednesday (Mercoledi) June 29: Some photos! yay!

A few of the other tutors from Cernusco: here, Tom, from Vegas. Excellent with the little boys, lots of energy, completely crazy, which is a good quality for this job.

Tony, from Canada. We were at the same orientation in San Remo, worked together in Cernusco, and are now together again in Bernareggio. We actually live two houses away from each other now, so we walk to and from school together. Luckily we get along swell. He's great.

Susan, Suz, from England. I love her. We connected pretty well, especially the second week, and it was hard to leave her last weekend. She gets bit by mosquitos and they become crazy huge bruises and blisters. I don't get bit. I think I have bad blood and the bugs know it. She's spectacular. I'm going to try to visit her in England before I go home.

Doing my thing during a warm-up song on the first day of camp in Cernusco. It's crazy difficult to get kids to relax, to realize that they are supposed to be having fun. Especially in a huge group when they can hide behind the person next to them if they feel shy. But we do well at getting them to let loose by being completely crazy and making them feel like they can do the same. It's a really fun process to watch.

Karoelein from South Africa, also a spectacular tutor. She had a lot of energy and the tiny kids looooved her. She's about 6 feet tall so the little guys were always climbing all over her. She was great.

My students in Cernusco: Alessandra. She was really bright, shy, and calm. And she had the most beautiful eyes. It was a challenge to get her to speak. She understood most of the time, but would rather just nod or use body language than speak. That's what we find with a lot of the kids: they understand a lot but haven't practiced speaking in real situations so they are afraid to try. But she did well over the two weeks.

Sara. My crier. She cried about 5 times. She's really smart, and likes to be perfect. I think this is why some of the boys would bully her. But she needs to toughen her skin. Some of her episodes were a little silly.

Simone, the nice nerdy one. He's a good kid. Simple and curious and intentional. I think he'll go far. He loved talking to me, practicing his English. He was easy to have in class.

Federico, Fede, a little devil. He's a good kid at heart but loves to think he's a cool kid. He'd try to hang out with the older helpers instead of learn. But I liked him. He made a great Mario for the final show.

Ludovica, Ludo. She's great, really smart, and doesn't let the boys bully her. I liked her a lot.

Giulia and the feaky voodoo doll she made. Hah. She's great.

Pietro. One of my fave kids. He joined my class a few days into the camp so he was a little behind which meant I spent a little while catching him up during a break. He was brilliant. He learned quickly and was super humble and gentle. I loved him. He will be really cool when he grows up. When other kids went wild playing dodge ball he was reading comics on the stairs. So cool.

Simone, my 'bully.' I love this kid.

Angela, my host sister. I love her too. What a sweetie.

Our wonderful camp director, Elena. Now that I am in another camp I realize how good she was. The new one is fine, but Elena was incredible. She ran that camp every second of the day and was always in at least 75% control. Which is really impressive. She is insane, but you have to be to care a lot about the school-system here enough to try to do something about it.

Hiding behind some helpers after a recreational game (rec games don't teach very much English. They are just fun. We play more rec games in the afternoon after our lessons) called Safari. We have an animal taped to our chests, I was a tiger, worth 8 points. Because I'm 8 points it takes 8 kids to bring me back to the zoo keeper. We hide while the kids count then they are let loose to find animals and drag them back to the keeper. We resist the whole time so there's just a bunch of tiny tots pushing and pulling you across the schoolyard. It's exhausting and spectacular.

My class (ignore the first 3 kids, not mine) spelling words :) BEAUTIFUL (yeah, the L could use some help, but getting Simone to participate at all was a huge accomplishment).

YESTERDAY

Can anyone guess what this one is?

BICYCLE : )

Singing and dancing at a political party. So fun. Suz, Karoelien, Zoe, Erin, Duncan, Me.

Rainy day so we had class inside for a couple hours. Dancing instead of teaching.

Thinking of escaping.

It may not look it, but I am playing soccer with the kids. I guard this wall while all the kids are against each other, all trying to score, all trying to keep each other from scoring. I was an excellent goalkeeper.

One of the helpers, Leo. Such a wonderful person. A perfect Italian.

Andrea, my host brother. I love this kid too. He's easy to love. This saturday we went to this pretty park near their home and played soccer. He's funny and knows English well enough to make jokes with me so we laughed all day long. I miss this kid.

Close up of part of the door on the Duomo in Milano. Crazy door.

A street off of Via Dante in Milano. The sun was perfect and I liked the funny columns.

The Cairoli Castello in Milano. I like the texture of this tower. The stones are these cool sort of curved bricks and they catch the light in a cool way.

With my host mother, Rina, and a fellow tutor, Ruth, at the Castello.

Our host mothers, mine on the right. She is a wonderful wonderful woman.

Duomo in Milano. So intricate and beautiful. And the plaza in front of it was great. I love plazas.

Said plaza. Plazas just make me feel happy.

I love this building. The super vivid yellow against the perfect grey. Ah. I love it.

Two of my fave kids (it's hard not to have favorites), Brando and Francesco.

Trying to take pics of myself. They all turned out looking pretty concerned. But this is the school in Cernusco. Most of the schools I've seen are yellow. Yellow is common here. I really like it. I'll try to use yellow more as an architect :)

My bike and my flowers (they died before I gave them to my family. So funny and sad. Mostly really funny) and the street I went up and down everyday to and from school, the school's old chapel tower of some kind in the distance

The field near my host family's home. I was happy.

Andrea and Angela, my brother and sister for two weeks.

Angela, Mario, and Rina. A golden family. I hope to see them again someday.

First week of camps - Cernusco, Italy

2011-06-18T14:47:00.001-06:00

Thank goodness it's the weekend! What a great, tiring week. I am still in Cernusco, near Milan, Italy. Today I am about half way through my stay in this town, unless I am asked to stay a third week, which is possible. I wouldn't be sad. I love the people here. I am in a very happy, healthy environment.

I live with Rina and Mario and their two kids Andrea and Angela. I love them. Mario doesn't speak English but is incredibly proud when he can remember a word he learned, like 'cherries' or 'full' or 'good night' or 'do you like?' He is so great. I wish I spoke Italian, I can tell he has a great sense of humor. We mostly communicate through body language and the couple of words we both know of each others' language. Rena has been teaching herself English for the last two years and can speak pretty well, though slowly and hesitantly. We can communicate everything we need/want to. She is really amazing. I have a lot of respect for her. They are a great family, very healthy and happy, as far as I can gather. Andrea is 16 years old. He makes me miss my 16 year old brother. He is really good at English. If I am a 10 and Mario is a 0, Rena is a 4 and Andrea is a 7. He understands almost all of what I say if I speak a little slower than usual. He just needs to practice speaking to get faster and to get used to some of the oddities of the spoken language. He's really smart. Today he taught me some spectacular tricks with the soccer ball. Angela is 13 and probably a 6 but is so shy and timid that she comes across as a 5. I like Angela. She is one of my students at school so I get to see her with her peers and with her family. She is gentle and kind and easygoing.

I love my host family. Some of the other tutors at this camp talk about how awkward it is to be home because of the language barrier (even though most of the families speak English as well as mine) and how they always just go home and sit in their rooms. How terribly sad. I would like to hope that
no matter the family I am placed with in the future I will be able to break through the first couple days of awkward tip-toeing and feel comfortable with them quickly. I love being home and find it a difficult decision when I could go home to hang out with my family or go out to eat with my fellow tutors. At home we have fun translating things back and forth ("Come si dice, come si dice, come si dice") and teaching each other new words, we play card games and play soccer and guitar, we talk and talk and laugh. Two nights ago the kids and I were talking about architecture school and I asked Andrea if he likes to draw and he said "I am not able." So I pulled out my notebook and showed him blind contour drawing, telling him that you don't have to "be able" to draw to do it. We then spent the next 30 minutes or so drawing things and drawing each other, soon joined by Rina because we were laughing so much. (A cute yellow ladybug just landed on my arm. Ciao, ladybug.)

At first I was sad to learn that I would be at this camp for two weeks. Most tutors are only sent to a given camp for one week at a time, then moved elsewhere in Italy. This camp is a two-week camp, so of course they keep the same tutors here for the duration of the camp. I wanted to see as much of Italy as possible. But I am so happy to be here, to be getting to know this place and my family and the kids and fellow tutors twice as well as I would have. (hm, do you think being somewhere twice as long equates to twice the understanding of the place? It is probably less of a linear equation and more of an exponential? I think so.) The longer camp has also been a better introduction to the material we teach. A slowed down, two week version of the workbook is less overwhelming.

Each summer camp is led by a camp director, usually a local school teacher who knows many of the students already and who runs the details of each camp. So ACLE sends the tutors, a basic structure of the camp plan, the materials, the money, etc, and the camp director organizes the host families, the groups of children, and the specific activities based on what is needed and what is available in the community. [ACLE has over 600 tutors (I want to say over 700 but I'm not positive) and runs about 600 camps over the course of the summer.] Our camp director, Elena, is spectacular. She is well organized and has been doing ACLE summer camps for 5 (maybe 6 or 7?) years. She loves these kids and knows them by name, all 90+ of them. She does this because she is passionate. Without the passion this kind of organization wouldn't succeed.

[Elena, the camp director, and Zoe, the tutor from NY]

We had two meetings, one on Sunday and one on Monday (school this week started Tuesday and we had a half day today (Saturday)), in a pub near the school. We got to know each other as tutors and talked about the basic workings of the camp. We also met the 'Helpers,' (helpers wear blue shirts that say "Helper" throughout the week, all the tutors wear red shirts that say "Tutor.") local teenagers who assist us throughout the day. This camp would be nothing without these incredible helpers. They get paid 25 € a week (about 35 bucks) while we as tutors get paid about $320 a week. They aren't really hired on by ACLE, they are more like volunteers, translating for the kids when things get confusing. They do it because this is one of the best opprotunites every year to practice speaking English. Most of the tutors don't speak Italian, so it really pushes everyone to communicate as best we can.

The camp here in Cernusco (Chair-noose-coh) is held at the elementary school. We stay outside in the courtyard and 'garden' ("yard" doesn't seem to be a word they teach over here) all day except for lunch. The school is enclosed by a gate (as is everything here. All the homes are gated, my own has two gates before I get to the front door) and the schoolyard gate stays closed until 4:30. When it opens parents literally come pouring in. It is the funniest thing. They are very protective of their children over here. It has been a warm week, upper seventies to low eighties every day, lots of sun. Incredibly draining. There are over 90 kids at this camp, divided into groups according to age/skill level. The youngest kids are only around 6 years old, the oldest are 13. Some classes only have 6 students, some have 15. There are benefits and disadvantages to both small and large groups and to both young and old students. ACLE tries to send a tutor for every 10 kids, give or take, so we have 9 tutors this week. (I have started picking up other ways of speaking English from my fellow tutors, so forgive me if I say something a bit different. For example, I was about to say "We have got..." but in the US we typically say "We have..." Trivial, trivial.) We have got 5 from the US (Me, Thomas from Las Vegas, Erin from Santa Cruz, Jenny from Chicago, and Zoe from New York), 2 from England (Ruth and Susan), one from Canada (Anthony) and one from South Africa (Karoelien from Cape Town). We are a good team, varrying from slightly insecure, more timid tutors to overly-confident loud tutors, each with our own ways of working with kids. It is a really positive environment, watching each other learn everyday how to better get along with each other and with the kids.

I love the helpers. 14-16 year old Italians, some better at English than others. We all hang out a bit after camp sometimes. A few days ago some of us went out for gelato, today we got lunch at a park, yesterday we all went to a huge pizza party. It's so great, having this little sub-culture of Italy to be part of for a week or two at a time.

[Zoe from NY and Anthony from Canada. Anthony is my buddy. Kindest soul I've met. Plus our spectacular helper Duncan, a 15 year old Brit who's family moved to Italy when he was 11 so he's our middle man translator when all hell breaks loose.]

I have the oldest group, nine 11-13 year olds. There are 5 girls and 4 boys. They have all been to this camp 3, 4, 5 years previously, so most of them are getting bored of the games and activities we play and it has been a challenge to keep them engaged. The older ones are at that stage where they don't want to talk to the other gender and this divides my class pretty dramatically. My kids are really great though. I love each of them. They are all so different. I like working with the older kids because I can have conversations with them. This tends to be the most useful learning tool anyways, because they are to the level where they are just building their vocabulary and learning tedious grammar rules. We try not to sit down and say "okay class, this is what we call comparatives and superlatives!" because that is what they do in normal English class. We try to have fun. But at this age level they are feeling a little bit too cool for this style of camp. So I teach them and we play games and they are learning and reviewing, but I most of all try to have one-on-one conversation with each of the kids throughout the day. They just need to practice speaking. Italian school systems have taught children to strive for perfection and that it is more perfect to be silent than to try and be incorrect. So I have found that my kids are really quite capable, they are just worried about making mistakes. It has taken a few days, but they see me as a friend and have relaxed a bit and now they try speaking even if they know what they are saying might be incorrect. I correct them kindly and encourage them for what they do know.

I love my kids. The tiny tots are fun, they climb all over us, yelling things we don't understand, but I really love being able to talk to the older kids. I have a lot of respect for them so they have a lot of respect for me. Funny how that works, eh? I learned very quickly, especially in comparisson to other tutors, that I am more interested in being the kids' friend than in being seen as a teacher. It is a very fine line to walk though, and I've fallen on both sides of it. Some kids took advantage of my down-to-earth style and I had to express to them that it doesn't work like that, others were slow to trust my friendship, thinking it was a trick or something, and were more timid at first. But by the second or third day into camp we had really made some progress as a class and it was really interesting to be a part of. Of course with shorter camps and different age levels all of this will change, but I've learned a lot from this week.

One of my kids has been really interesting to work with. He is 12, plays rugby, is about my height, has hair longer than mine, and could take me down easily. He is kind of a bully, but mostly just has ADD and a bad reputation. He is really kind and gentle at heart. He likes me. All the boys like me because I am good at sports. Girls here don't play sports. Some of the girls play a little bit of volleyball, but hardly. So I gained a lot of respect being good at sports. I'm glad to help break some stereotypes where I can. My class bully is really smart. He knows most of the answers and wants to learn, but I can tell he feels a little embarrassed to look like he cares. It's a hard place to be. I talk to him a lot and whenever we have a break longer than 5 minutes he finds me and asks me to play soccer or volleyball or rugby. It's cool. I don't think teachers usually give him the chance to express himself, so he is very cautious with me, not sure if he can trust me, but I really care about him and want him to succeed and I think he feels it. He is a little uncomfortable with it, actually. Again, just kind of not sure if there's a trick. He often has a cold, closed off stare about him, but when we play sports or make jokes he cracks and smiles and his eyes are so full of emotion. And when he plays with the tiny tots he is gentle and fair. They love him. It is only when he is with boys his age that he gets rough. And sometimes he makes the girls cry. But he has a golden heart. Funny how quickly I feel invested in these kids lives. I will think about them when I am gone.

[Two helpers, Stefano and Leo, with my class bully. I probably won't use the names of my kids on here.]

I could spend days with each of my kids. I think they are so interesting. It is a very unique situation, these younger kids wanting to communicate with me, wanting to be my friend, but the only way they can is by speaking english because I don't speak Italian. It works out perfectly. I get them to speak english and they get me to care about every word they say. Tricky. What a strange summer, meeting dozens and dozens of new people every week, investing in all of them to various extents, then never seeing most of them again. I wonder how many months one could do this before feeling too lonely.

My typical day this week: wake up around 7:30, eat breakfast with whoever is awake, then hop on a great cruiser bike that I get to use for the two weeks I'm here. The school is about a 4 minute ride from my home, part of that on a separated bike lane. Everyone here rides cruisers. My fave bike is my host-brother's.

[This is Andrea's bike. SO rad. He said his mother used to ride it around but he has had it for 7 years or so now. He painted it blue and white, it used to be grey. My cruiser isn't a mini like this, but I love seeing this style around. A lot of people have them. Mine is new. It has a super cool chain guard similar to this one though, which is brilliant. I don't even have to roll up my pant leg if I wear pants. It is amazing. Do you think the slc bike scene would accept the full chain gaurd on my fixie? I think they're ready for it.]

I get to school around 8 or 8:15, saying hello to Elena and heading to the 'staff room' where we keep all the art supplies and teaching tools. I grab my box with my workbooks and drawing stuff and finish any last minute planning or make any posters or other things I need to teach a concept that day. At 9 all nine tutors are outside, gathering the 90+ kids using a chant that they've learned means to gather round in a circle. Most of the days we split into 2 groups, an older group and younger group, to do 20-30 minutes of warm ups, teaching songs or games that practice English. We try to get them to move their bodies as much as possible while learning because the retention rate goes up when the heart is beating fast :) or so they say. But really, if they have actions to go along with words they do much better. We are all exhausted by the end of the warm up, and sometimes we drag warmup out if the kids are really enjoying the games. But at this point my 12 and 13 year olds have usually sat out and are too cool to be entertained by these things. Which is crazy. I'd love to play these games all day long. If one kid does it the others soon follow.

[Excellent civic band played for our opening day morning warm up. SO great. I danced and danced.]

We then split into our groups (ACLE divides groups by colors. White, yellow, orange, red, blue, purple, green. My kids are green. The youngest is white. Our camp is heavily weighted in the young half, most of the kids being in yellow and orange) and have about 2.5 hours (with a short break and snack in the middle) to do lessons. We try to teach material in engaging ways, through song, dance, etc, then enforce it with games and such. Italian kids are really competitive, so I try to set up some kind of competition with most of what I do. Lunch is at noon thirty and is followed by break, the best part of the day :) I play sports or talk to my kids during lunch and break. It's the best. Then we have afternoon activites, like organized sports or chess or arts and crafts or magic tricks, run by community members or helpers or tutors, and if I'm not running an activity I walk around helping out or helping the kids speak in english. It is easy to enforce that in the morning, but after noon there is less one on one work so the kids get lazier. At 3 we break into smaller groups, either a couple classes together or teams made of all ages and do big group games like mini olympics or scavenger hunts where they have to do everything in english.

[Some kiddies doing an afternoon scavenger hunt where each team had to hold hands the whole time. Hah! So great. The older kids would take charge and the little ones would just do what they were told. They had to do a variety of tasks involving english, reading off of a list (written in english, of course) usually asking certain tutors or helpers something in english or telling us a joke in english or jumping up and down while counting to fifty, etc etc. Afternoon activities are a great time to get lots of energy out of the kids while we relax and watch the show. It is never as relaxing as we hope.]

[A pyramid seconds before it collapsed. Italian kids are so freakin cute.]

Essentially we trick them into speaking english. They are usually only practicing english in very boring, formal settings. This is a more realistic way of using the language and the kids have a lot of fun while doing it. At 4:30 the gate opens and the parents flood in. We have a meeting after school with Elena and the helpers to discuss problem kids or traumatic events (Italian children are very dramatic. They'll milk a scrape on their arm for all it is worth) or plans for the next day, then we all go our ways or grab a gelato then go home.

I am sore in weird places, definitely strained a tendon or muscle in the ball of my foot (weird eh? It kills, I have to walk on the outside of my foot and now that is starting to hurt. Luckily it's the weekend so I can rest it a bit. I'd rather 'play sport' with the boys than let it heal. Stupid jessie), and am exhausted by the time I get home around 5 or 5:30. But it has been really rewarding and I am happy. My family eats around 8:30 every night (the sun doesn't set until past nine) and they feed me way too well. Luckily I'm running around a lot, I'm eating so much everyday. I spend the evenings planning lessons and games for the next day, then crash in my bed around 11 or 12.

A few nights ago I went to the city center (this city is tiny, so it's not much of a city and not much of a center, but wonderful still the same) and listened to a jazz concert. It was raining ever so lightly when I left and it only got slightly worse as I rode my bike. I was so happy. I love riding in the rain. The concert was fun, everyone standing or sitting under umbrellas or under the gazebos, listening to a great Italian group. I rode around in the rain for a while after, just enjoying the night and feeling happy.

[Spectacular jazz band in the rain. Best night.]

Last night all of the tutors and helpers met Elena at the school and carpooled just a few kilometers over to a neighboring town for a party. Elena is part of the center-left democratic party (the socialist party, according to someone. I'm trying my best not to learn anything about Italian politics) and the town was holding a center-left party festa at a local outdoor pizzaria. It was so great. Italy is cool because when you order pizza you each get your own huge pizza and everyone eats the whole thing. It's wonderful. Elena bought all the food and drinks and we danced and laughed and had so much fun, this big group of English and Italian kids. We sang a bunch of songs on the karaoke stage, like 20 of us crammed onto it, danced until we nearly collapsed, and were cheered on by the political party none of us know anything about. So fun.

[Thomas from Las Vegas, Karoelien from South Africa, and Erin from Santa Cruz, at the pizza party.]

[Dancing dancing dancing. Including Elena, the camp director, in the yellow shirt. SO fun.]

Tomorrow I want to go to Milano. My host mother said if I want to go with other tutors that's great but if I am going alone they'll come with. I didn't even ask other tutors if they wanted to go because I just want to hang out with my family. Hah. I'm happy. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts ('cept maybe that strained tendon in my foot).

Buonanotte!

San Remo and Cernusco

2011-06-13T05:07:00.001-06:00

Hello world. I spent the last week in San Remo, a beautiful city/town on the coast of Italy. I am now in Cernusco sul Naviglio, a suburb about 20 km (12.5 miles) out of Milano.

Last week was a whirlwind of energy. I cannot believe that one week ago I was only just arriving in San Remo. It went by so quickly but was incredibly demanding physically, mentally, socially. I took a train from Nice to San Remo, and was greeted there by several ACLE tutors. Throughtout the rest of the day 115 other tutors traveled to San Remo and they sorted us into three different hotels (small city, no big hotels. The man who owned the hotel I was in, Hotel Cortese, also owned the restaurant we ate at one of the nights. Small cities are great) where we were to stay for the week. The week previous they had about the same amount of tutors go through orientation and this coming week and the following they do the same. Those 600 ish tutors plus about 150 returning tutors (from previous summers) means a good 750 tutors to be shuffling around Italy every week. Incredible, no? This organization is so great.

San Remo (I loved exploring the city, especially the old part of town)

San Remo

As we walked out of the train station the first day dozens of cyclists were finishing a race from Milan to San Remo. It was so great! My first day in Italy I got to geek out about bikes AND Italians!

San Remo from the harbor. So beautiful. The city spreads over a few hills which recede into big beautiful mountains, always covered in clouds and fog. The weather was so great while we were there.

First day after dumping stuff at the hotel. These are fellow Hotel Corteseans: David from California, Amélie from Canada, Ivan from England, Alastair from England, and Hugh from Ireland

The Italian school system teaches kids to be quiet and perfect in the classroom, so learning English is not fun and kids have learned that being silent gets them in less trouble than trying and making a mistake. So we are here to A, give them confidence, B, let them have fun while learning, and C, to help them learn through movement and song and laughter. It's really great. For those familiar, this camp system reminds me a little bit of EFY, the lds summer camps. As a tutor I will have a small group of kids assigned to me for the week but we function as a large camp, all doing activities and things together during certain parts of the day. As tutors we have to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm to keep the attention of our kids and to most of all help them not be too reserved. It will be exhausting, even orientation was exhausting and we were only working with kids for a couple hours 2 of the days.

It was amazing, watching the 116 tutors over the week. We are incredibly social animals. We meet people, talk and talk and talk, and slowly break into smaller, more managable groups, usually based on geographic proximity (ie which hotel we were staying in). I liked experiementing with the ways I introduced myself, the ways I talked about the beauty of Utah, about Salt Lake City, about Mormons and Mormonism, etc. By the end of the week meeting new people got tiring and we all sort of settled into our comfortable groups, but they did well at forcing us to mix up for certain activities regardless.

Last night in San Remo. Some good people: Andy from Missouri, Alastair, Anna from England/Paris, Paige from Missouri, Amélie, David

ACLE is very drama based. We had to put on a short skit to demonstrate some English. We were three models in a fashion show. I won, of course.

The Triple Threat: Kathrine from Canada, Izak and Ian fron South Africa. These three are wonderful and I hope to see them sometimes this summer. Otherwise I'll have to visit South Africa.

I met a lot of wonderful people from all over the English-speaking world last week. I became closest to a few of the people in my hotel, namely Alastair from England, Anna from England, and Laura from Ireland, the latter two being my roommates. It was easy to quickly love these people. We were together for 6 days straight. Very little alone time. And we were singing and dancing and running around and making fools of ourselves all together, which is the best way to get to know people, in my opinion. We were all a little bit out of our comfort zones which left us feeling very open and capable. It was truly amazing. I will never forget some of the people I met last week. We all got scattered around Italy on Saturday and we all get shuffled about every week or two. I will definitly be working with people from my orientation throughout the next couple months, but the chances of being sent to the same camp (out of about 600 camps throughout the country) with any of my closest friends is slim. That is what we get for connecting to people easily. Stoicism is the only answer to living a life without loneliness :) I'm not sad though, it was a great week.

Alastair and my roommate Laura from Ireland. This is on our last night at about 2 or 3 in the morning. She was doing her dolphin noise. I love Laura. Very Irish. I hope to see her again too.

My other roommate, Anna. We got along swell. I'll miss her.

I think I can say Alastair (Aly) was my best friend at orientation. An incredible person.

Love.

The Mediterranean Sea is soooo warm.

David, Aly, and Anna. They happened to be sent to the same camp this week. I am jealous. I'll see them again I think. Because I want to.

Aly and Anna

Today and tomorrow in Italy the schools are being used for voting (on water rights, nuclear energy, and a legal accountability for politicians thing. Interesting stuff) so most of the camps this week start on Tuesday instead of the usual Monday. The camp in this particular city (Cernusco) does a two week camp rather than a one week camp, so I will be here for two weeks. My host family is really great. The mother speaks a good amount of English and is an Engineer, the father is a Dentist and speaks no English, the 16 year old son speaks pretty well and translates when we need him to, and the 13 year old daughter is cute and shy and taught me this song on the guitar tonight. She said it is the song every Italian first learns on the guitar because it is a classic and is so easy. I am really comfortable here. I am learning Italian, slowly but surely. It is a great language, incredibly phonetic, and has some similarities to Spanish, which I know a tiny bit of. I will probably gain 20 pounds (or about 1.5 stones, if I learned anything from my English friends) while over here. They eat so much. It is so great. But I have to remember that they often keep the second/main course off the table until we finish the first. I forget that and am usually comfortably full by the time the main meal comes out. Ha! But I am polite and eat what is prepared. Plus it is soooo good. Simple and wonderful. Good ideas for when I am back in the real world.

Anti-Nuclear energy bike ride through San Remo

Old Town, all buttressed and interesting. Loved it here.

ACLE prepares us to work with kids from 5 years of age to about thirteen. Beyond that only a few camps are run for highschoolers (14+) throughout the country. I am working with the oldest age group, the 13 year olds. I am nervous, but mostly excited. I have found that kids at all ages usually like me if I show them enough respect from the beginning. I think I will learn a lot in the next few days and weeks and months.

It is late. Hopefully I will be able to update this thing a couple more times while in Cernusco; I would love to write about some of the conversations I've had in the last week. For now I will upload some pics and go to sleep. Goodnight world.

Cernusco, near Milano. Where I am now.

Ruth, one of the 8 other tutors at this camp.

Our host mothers. So wonderful.

The church at the center of town. I explained to my mother that SLC is organized around the Mormon temple. When we got here she said "This is Cernusco's temple."

Nice, France. Le Début.

2011-06-04T13:14:00.000-06:00

I've had a hard time wanting to spend time on the computer the last couple weeks. It's easy for me to detach, forget about the world outside of my own, and I haven't had much desire to keep in touch. I just finished reading Voltaire's Candide, or, Optimism. and just before that I read Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, so my thoughts have been full of questions about human nature and my world. I seem to be falling back into the idea that nothing exists but through me, through my experiencing of it (in a sort of passive, receptive way).

I am presently sitting out on the terrace of Hotel Pastoral in Nice, France. This is my seventh day in this city.

My adventures started with a week in New York where I stayed with my sister in Brooklyn. While in NY I read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, recommended by a friend: a nice on-the-road philosophy and a good way to set the mood for my trip. NY was nice, an interesting limbo where I had left my friends back home --most people thought I was already in Europe-- but I was still surrounded by the English language. At Central Park I played soccer and "showbiz volleyball" (involves a soccer ball, a weighted point system (first team to 60 wins) and heading the ball over the net) for hours with a group of ten Brits, all actors in the Broadway show 'Jerusalem.' At Highline park in Chelsea I was absorbed into the whirlwind of a family simply because
they sat on the bench where I was reading. I took a family picture for them and ended up chatting with the grandpa and father about Salt Lake City, had great conversation with the 10 year old Down Syndrome son (he was quite fond of me, even shared his cookie with me!), and when the sister's boyfriend arrived to meet the family for the first time I tried to explain that I wasn't in fact part of the family, despite the ten year old on my lap and grandfather's arm around my shoulder. About 45 minutes later they left as suddenly as they appeared, and I went back to reading my book. At Union Square I was caught trying to read the title of the book in a gentleman's hands and was swept immediately into a 2 hour conversation about everything from murder mysteries to women in the work place. His name was Dr. Godfrey Burns, a recently retired Nephrologist specializing in AIDS, and the book was The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville. He was kind and honest, caring and intentional. We met up the next morning for breakfast and chatted for another couple hours, this time about his history and his future as a writer. He sent me off with a stop at Barnes & Noble, buying me two books for my travels.

I like New York and could probably live there for a while. This trip I was able to really start feeling the difference between the different neighborhoods and characters of the city. I spent time in Brooklyn (south-west area, near Sunset Park) where my sister lives, East Village where my cousin lives, upper-west side where my sister works, and even the upper-east side where a friend lives. One day my sister and I went 45 minutes out of the city on the New Jersey line to a little town called Sloatsburg, found a river off the road and went swimming for a few hours. A nice break from the big city. On my seventh day there I found my way out to JFK and got on a plane to France at 6 pm. I sat in some kind of middle class seat, the rich folk in front of me, the poor ones behind, and had a window seat on an emergency exit row where I couldn't even touch the seat in front of me with my feet. I watched the sun set out my window, then a couple hours later watched it rise. As we flew over the beautiful cities along the coast I realized that I had few plans past the initial 'get to France' goal, but I didn't worry; things tend to happen when I need them to.

I found myself on a bus to the city center, it was now about 730, Sunday morning. I got off somewhere along the Promenade des Anglais and stood watching the beautiful blue Mediterranean Sea, then turned around and started walking. The streets were still sleeping, the storefronts all gated and shutters closed (every window here has shutters, fully operable and incredibly useful). I had no map, no destination, and a clear mind. I walked, turning left or right when I wanted, reading signs and laughing at my lack of French knowledge. The city came alive as I walked, first people, then bicycles, then scooters and cars, and soon most of the stores were open and the streets were bustling. French is beautiful and subtle. I envy the conversations that fly around me, completely passing over my understanding. I bought a phrasebook and have learned a few things, but I think of myself as a newborn and figure it would take at least 2 years of living here before I could speak even sort-of fluently. It deepens my respect and awe for the travelers I have met who speak English so well.

I found a street market, apparently a Sunday event (I hope to catch it again tomorrow before I board a train to Italy), and was entertained for a couple of hours by the vendors, the shoppers, the kids, the dogs. I found a bank and an internet cafe and set up a time to meet a local couchsurfing host, then wandered back to the beach and fell asleep. That evening I met Nicolas. He hosted me for two nights and it was great. He lives in Old Town, the historic part of town where streets are only about ten feet wide and staircases connecting different elevations seem to have been built as an afterthought, kind of crammed into odd corners. It's a great place to be despite it's touristy population. Nicolas was born in Chile, speaks Spanish, French, and English, studies physics at Faculté des Sciences here in Nice, and turned in his PhD thesis this week. He was a good host, we talked one hundred percent of the time we were together, and he taught me how to work the ropes of the town. After two days in Old Town I moved to a hostel further up the main street here, Ave Jean Médecin, where I have been the rest of the week. Now I look back at the first couple of days here with a smile, laughing at my helplessness and insecurities. It's incredible how much I've learned already, mostly about myself, traveling/travelers, and the kindness of strangers. It would take a while for me to say I've learned a lot about France. Perhaps after two months in Italy I will have learned a bit about Italy. One can hope.

Through this hostel I've met a variety of travelers and have spent some good time with them: Luke and Luke from Australia, Ryan from Atlanta, Daniel from Sweden, the two Norwegian girls, and numerous others who passed through for a night here and there. The Lukes and I are kind of the regulars this week and we've become good friends with Fredrick and Sabrina who run the hostel, living in the apartment above. With the Lukes I went to Monaco for a day, yesterday we spent the entire afternoon on the beach down the coast at Antibes, and a couple nights ago we got a group of 8 or so travelers together to go out on the town. The other night Ryan and I wandered through an Italian festival near Old Town then sat with hundreds of other young-folk outside the fenced-in area where Luke and Luke had paid 37 £ to see Wu-Tang Clan. The opening French rap djs weren't too shabby. Last night Daniel and I explored Old Town, got caught in the rain (tropical rain storms are wonderful) and by the time we got back to the hostel it looked like we had gone swimming in our clothes. I love walking around by myself, it is beautiful and peaceful being somewhere where I don't understand a lick of what is being said around me, but I have been happy to spend time with other travelers, hearing their histories and plans.

I leave Nice tomorrow. I have been here long enough that I feel comfortable navigating the city and enjoy the familiar parts of town. I am excited to be in Italy, teaching English. I hope to pick up on a little Italian and to make a few friends. This is all I ask.

This keyboard is bloody annoying but I made it through this post! I tried uploading pics but it didn't work with blogger so check out this flickr set for a few pics . I will now go take a few pictures, draw a few things, then hang out in Nice for my last night. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. See you in Italy!

Chicago Trip -- Feb 9-12 2011

2011-02-26T13:15:00.001-07:00

It's been a while.

I went to Chicago with 25+ other architecture students and 5 professors a couple weeks ago for 4 days. It was great. I really liked it. I wished I had my bike, I could have explored that city so much on a bike. But walking was cool too. I like it maybe more than I like New York. I like the shape of the city, how it is laid out, and how the river cuts through. I like the different areas of town and how different they feel, how I could tell which way I was facing or what part of town I was in by the end. I will miss slc's mountains and sunsets when I move away someday, but I am excited to spend at least some time in a big city.

I bought a new travel camera. A Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS Elph. It's tiny and takes good pictures and has good battery life. I'm happy. It also has the cool color select feature, which I tested on the airplane.

The river is beautiful. We had a lot of free time and one night a group of us was walking over one of the bridges and that part of the river was frozen over (it was "really cold" while we were there, but I didn't really mind.) So we dropped/chucked rocks (and maybe pieces of concrete) until we broke through. Fun.

There is so much to see in Chicago. (this photo is for D.E.D., I thought you'd appreciate it.) Sometimes I'd have my camera out (funny scene, 30 architecture students like ducks, walking every road and taking every picture. Hard not to look like a tourist.), other times I'd have my sketchbook, sometimes I'd just be running around climbing on stuff. I loved every second of being outside.

Chicago had been slammed with a couple feet of snow 3 or 4 days before we went and it never warmed up enough to clear out. But I still saw some bikes, which made me happy.

I can't remember what building this is in. Hah. We saw a lot of buildings in 4 days. This was a fun trip to experiment with my camera settings on. Featured is Sandor Gabor Yani.

This was some huge shopping center in Water Tower Place. 8 or so floors of places to buy lots of things. Blegh. But the elevators were cool.

My favorite skyscraper there was the Hancock Building. It's so beautiful. I happened to take this pic in black and white, but the brown steel is beautiful and the cross bracing is beautiful and the simplicity is beautiful. I didn't think it'd be that rad. But it was.

There were all these weird layers of the city. I found it interesting. That building in the middle is the Trump tower which was supposed to be the tallest building in the world but it was under construction during 9.11 and they got nervous and froze construction and downsized everything.

Aqua Tower, the tallest building in the world designed by a woman-owned firm (Jeanne Gang). This one was interesting. From this angle it's cool and weird, all the undulating balconies and white/blue play, but as you walk away from it the balconies become straight lines and you can't tell that it is anything special. Some of my classmates were mad about that. I think it's really interesting.

We visited Frank Lloyd Wright's home in Oak Park. It was beautiful. This picture is not his home, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. He designed a bunch of houses on the couple of streets around his home too, and this pic is one of my favorites of those. It was so easy to tell which houses were his design. I have a lot of respect for him as a designer. I think I would have hated him in real life, he was a crazy control freak (which made him an excellent architect), but what he did is truly amazing.

This is Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, a couple blocks from his home. It's a unitarian church. It's beautiful. We spent a couple hours in here. There are so many lines and details to see. This was one of my favorite spaces we visited. Really cool energy in here.

We also visited Illinois Institute of Technology. IIT's campus is dominated by Mies van der Rohe buildings. Also truly incredible. The most famous being Crown Hall, which I'll link to in a minute. The whole campus was really interesting. It feels really utilitarian and industrial. But I think it has a very very different feel in the summer. If I moved to Chicago I'd love to go to school here.

From the (almost) top of the Hancock building. This was the view from the bathroom. Classiest bathroom I've ever seen.

One of the professors made her studio carry around little moleskins and fill it with really fast blind sketches. I love blind sketches, so I bought myself a little moleskin and did some sketches, some blind (meaning I don't look at the paper until I'm done drawing. It's usually easy to tell which are blind), some fast, some slow. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. I loved seeing the city in lines. These are some of them:

I'll link to pics that show what I was drawing when I can. This is the corner of Crown Hall at IIT.

This is the front of FLW's house.

This room was beautiful (if you couldn't tell). We couldn't take pictures, so you'll just have to see it yourself.

Frank Lloyd Wright has so much fun with lines and shapes and planes. This was a section of a window at the Unity Temple.

This is one of Mies van der Rohe's most famous buildings, 860 Lakeshore Drive. It was pretty incredible. I've seen pictures of it from day one in my architecture schooling and thought it'd be average, but it really blew me away. This is a more recognized shot of the buildings.

Also at IIT, this is where the architecture school's shop is located. I just drew the fire escape.

This is Morgan and Lauren at The Art Institute of Chicago in Lorenzo Piano's newer extension, his beautiful stairs behind them.

One of FLW's homes in Oak Park. I really liked this one.

My classmates.

This is the Aqua tower :) Pretty obvious, I think.

On the train to Oak Park.

Sitting inside the Art Institute, looking out at Columbus Dr. Lots of snow.

Rem Koolhaas is a big architect right now. He recently designed the student center at IIT. It's crazy. It took me a minute to decide if I liked it. And I do. But it's really intense and in your face and loud. But that's what a student center of this type is supposed to be. Which is hard to do well. There is a lot of color. This was in one of the orange hallways.

This was in the meeting room of the Unity Temple. So many cool lines.

We took a break to warm our hands inside the Museum of Contemporary Art so I drew a picture looking out.

This is the second oldest water tower in the US and one of the few buildings in the area that survived the 1871 fire.

FLW's studio was incredible. It was built onto the original house a few years later. The details inside are amazing. I could spend a week in his studio just looking at the woodwork.

This is in the chapel of the Unity Temple. This picture does not do the place justice, but it's the view I had when I drew this.

The trip was great. I love my classmates, my professors, Chicago, drawing, running around, dancing, laughing. And now there are only two months of school left 'till I graduate. (Then Europe?!?) I can't wait.

Routine

2010-12-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

I am a person of routine. My life is a routine. If anything interrupts, be it small or large, I notice almost immediately, though I cannot always tell what it is that has changed. Sometimes I’m the one who makes the interruption, sometimes I’m not.

When I was in high school I had this routine for getting ready for bed. I had to do every step. It made me feel whole and comfortable. But I really don’t think I have OCD that bad. Honestly. It had something to do with “eyes, ears, mouth, and nose” from the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Eyes-eyes-ears-ears-mouth-mouth-mouth-and-nose. I think. And I always did it in order:
Eyes: wash off makeup (I did wear eye makeup my jr. and senior year and probably my freshman year of college).
Eyes: check eyebrows; pluck them if I felt like plucking them. I still do, sometimes. I wish I didn’t, who cares if we all have unibrows, right? But 1, it’s fun, like getting a sliver, and 2, I guess peer pressure still wins on this one. Someday. Maybe when I’m married and nothing matters anymore.

Ears: brush my hair. It seems like too simple a task to give it it’s own step, but everything got its own step.
Ears: go pee. This fits into ‘ears’ because I can hear myself pee. Duh.
Mouth: brush my teeth.
Mouth: floss my teeth (this was back when I was more motivated to do such things regularly).
Mouth: brush my retainer, wear it.
Nose: pop zits, wash face (I only ever wash my face with water. I credit my clear skin to this. I’m kind of anti-extra-stuff (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, chap-stick, sun-screen, etc.). In jr. high I stayed up late one night watching an infomercial on some acne thing and was convinced that I needed it. I ordered it. It was like 80 bucks. And 3 in the morning. I maybe had one zit on my face at that time. My family made fun of me when it came in the mail. Amazing, the power of the before and after shots on those infomercials. I was convinced that I looked like the befores. Since then I’ve never had a facial cleanser or whatever they are called these days).
I don’t know when this routine fell apart, but I think of it sometimes. I’d have to modify it now, seeing as I no longer wear makeup, don’t often pluck my eyebrows, never brush my hair (I don’t even own a comb anymore), never brush my teeth (jk, duh), have a permanent retainer now, and hardly ever wash my face (‘cept in the shower, but still just water). I’m glad I’ve simplified things. But that’s not the point of this recollection. The point is that I am realizing how much I use routines and patterns in my daily life and that I’ve been doing it for a long time. And I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I think of this today because of my trip to the DI just now. It’s dark outside so I give myself permission to wear earphones on my bike. (Counter-intuitive? At night I can see headlights so I know where cars are. It doesn’t matter as much that I can’t hear.) But I already have a routine, a pretty strict routine, for biking—especially in the winter. First I text google to find out the temperature: if it’s below 35 or 40 I’ll wear my wool sweater and my brown jacket, if warmer than 40 I wear just one. I then put on the jacket(s), then my ear-warmers, then my helmet, then my backpack. Sometimes my back light is in my coat pocket, sometimes it is in my backpack. I usually hold it or keep it in my pocket until I’m about to get on my bike. Then I grab my gloves, but don’t put them on yet. Then I go outside, lock the door, keep my keys out to unlock the shed, leave the keys in the door as I grab my bike, prop it against myself as I lock the shed, put the keys in my pocket, then turn on my light and clip it to my back pocket, then put on my gloves. So tonight, wearing headphones (which for some reason I just haven’t done for a couple months) really threw me off. I probably spent an extra minute before I got on my bike and when I locked it up and when I got off home just working around my headphones. It feels so inefficient. Which is pretty ridiculous. What’s another three minutes on a Tuesday night? (Actually, I missed the train back up by just a few minutes, maybe I would have caught it had I not worn headphones. But what does that matter? Maybe I would have met the love of my life on that train. But maybe many things would have been different had I not worn headphones. Maybe I would have died, for some reason.) It threw me off for a couple reasons: The second I get off my bike I don’t want my music to be playing so instead of locking up my bike I try to get my ipod out to push pause and have to take off my gloves and want to turn off my light but it falls off easily so I’m also holding that with my gloves and my ear-warmers but hen I need to get my lock out of my bag but have tons of stuff in my hands so I balance it all on the saddle but when I lock up my bike it moves and the stuff falls off the saddle and by now I’m sad that I even tried anything. Then when I got home tonight my headphones were hurting because of my ear-warmers so I took the latter off and had them in my hand, along with one of my gloves and my light, while I was trying to unlock the shed door and put my bike away and ended up dropping the light on the ground and walking slowly towards the back door because I couldn’t figure out if I was missing something with one glove off and one on and music still playing in my ears. SHEESH it’s hard sometimes.

But sometimes things interrupt my routine and throw me off in bigger ways. Breaking-up with a boyfriend, for example.

We lived downtown for four months. Before that we lived on opposite sides of the downtown area, I’d move every six months or so (that’s just what I do), he lived in a warehouse. We dated for a year and a half, the longest I’ve ever dated anyone. We were happy. I was happy. I learned a lot with Davey. I learned a lot about him, but mostly I learned about me. It is hard for me to realize what I’m learning while I’m learning. Now I live by the University. I don’t really like living up on the hill. I feel detached from the parts of the city that have more energy (and dumpsters). But this is where I am, and I am not sad about it.

It is nice to be comfortable with someone. It’s nice to be exactly who I want to be in any given moment. Ideally I’m this way all the time anyways. But I’m not, yet.

I used to go to class every morning, even to the dumb ones. I’d wake up, make an omelet, pack my bag, go to school. I felt functional and motivated. I loved everything that I was doing. I loved school and some of my classmates made fun of me for being too passionate and because I thought everything was “so beautiful.” And I had my daily routines. I was eating healthily (usually because of Davey), riding my bike a lot, doing well in school, feeling like myself. Or at least a self that I really liked.

We broke up in the first week of October. We decided we both had things we wanted to realize about ourselves. We both feel good about this still, as lousy as it is to be alone sometimes. And I’m glad we know how to be selfish when we need to be. Or maybe it’s the opposite of selfish. I’m not sure yet.

For two months I didn’t go to one of my classes. I’d only go to the “important” ones. I didn’t care about school and some of my classmates made fun of me for not being myself. At one point a classmate and sort-of-constantly-depressed friend of mine, Morgan, said, “I like this new you. It’s so negative.” I realized that nothing really mattered. I don’t know if I’d say I was depressed, but maybe as depressed as little cheerful optimistic Jessie Gilmore ever has been. I sort of lost hope in people in general. I ate cereal for practically every meal, maybe some nutella here and there, and didn’t go grocery shopping for weeks. My new roommate and old friend Leah said, “You are starting to seem more human to me now that I’m getting to know you better.” I wanted to explain to her that I had never in my whole life been this way before. Never had I not cared.

This is hard, trying to convey how I’ve felt for the last couple months. It hasn’t all been dark and hard. In fact I don’t know if there has been a single day that was 100% dark and hard. There are so many things around me that are constants, my busy school schedule, for example, that life just kept moving and pulling me along. And I’m really glad it has. In the last couple months I’ve still laughed, a lot, and met people who make me smile, and read a lot, written a lot. I still ride my bike, I still listen to good music, I still see people I love every day. And I have been able to look back at the last two years through some semi-clear eyes. I really like looking back at who I was before I met Davey. I like looking at all of the things I learned and changed about myself. I like learning that I do what I want to do and if I don’t want to do it I don’t. And that so much of who I am now is in me because I want it to be. I like who I was for the last two years, though I was different almost every day. I like who I am now even more.

I like that I can think about things logically. I respect my emotions and am grateful that I feel them, but they don’t take over because I don’t let them. I have learned that emotions lie. What I feel is not necessarily real or necessary sometimes. My body is feeling something, yes, but I’m choosing to feel that emotion. Like listening to a song that you know will make your heart ache. Why do we do that? I don’t, very much. I am good at detaching myself from my situation and looking at it as a caring friend or counselor would. Then I give myself advice, like, “Don’t listen to songs that break your heart. That’s a negative way to think about this situation. Instead listen to something good, something that will make you dance, and be in this moment right now with your present self, instead of making yourself go back to an old moment. Because that old moment wasn’t even sad, so why make it sad? “ It is nice that our relationship was full of good things. When I do think back on it my thoughts are positive. Or can be, if I choose so. But then I can also remember why we decided to break up and why that is good too. Because if I can’t remember that I’m not being honest.

The last two weeks have been different. One day I had a good review for my final project in my most important class and suddenly I remembered that I like school. I like design. I think I could be a good designer, if I want to be. I can do anything, if I want to. I suddenly cared about things again. I am optimistic again. I don’t get slowed down by negative things or people. And I dance because I want to, not only because I know it’s good for my soul. I can feel myself taking control again. I’m still learning about myself, duh. But I love learning about myself. It’s fun. I am very interested in myself and why I do what I do. I’m making new patterns for myself and teaching myself how to think in new ways. I feel like what I am doing is meaningful, even if all I am doing is laughing with my friends. Especially if all I’m doing is laughing with my friends. And best of all, I’m laughing at myself again. And breaking social rules. And trying new things. I am happy about where I am in every sense.

White Privilege Article

2010-10-05T12:26:00.002-06:00

Read this okay? Everyone should.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
By Peggy McIntosh

[This article is now considered a ‘classic’ by anti-racist educators. It has been used in workshops and classes throughout the United States and Canada for many years. While people of color have described for years how whites benefit from unearned privileges, this is one of the first articles written by a white person on the topics.]

Through work to bring materials from Women’s Studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to improve women’s status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials, which amount to taboos, surround the subject of advantages, which men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened or ended.

Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege, which was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something
which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege which puts me at an advantage.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in Women’s Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, “ Having described it what will I do to lessen or end it?”

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow “them“ to be more like “us.”

I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege on my life. I have chosen those conditions which I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographical location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can see, my African American co-workers, friends and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and line of work cannot count on most of these conditions.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my prsent setting, eben if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

In unpacking this invisible backpack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience which I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant and destructive.

I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a pattern of assumptions which were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turf, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways, and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit in turn upon people of color.

For this reason, the word ”privilege” now seems to be misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work to systematically over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one’s race or sex.

I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred systematically. Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.

We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantages which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as a privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power which I originally saw as attendant on being a human being in the U.S. consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.

I have met very few men who are truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance and if so, what will we do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most of our white students in the U.S. think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color, they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion or sexual orientation.

Difficulties and dangers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism and heterosexism are not the same, the advantaging associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage which rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex and ethnic identity than on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977 continues to remind us eloquently.

One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms which we can see and embedded forms which as a member of the dominant group one is not taught to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in the invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the systems won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes. (But) a “white” skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate, but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power, and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

Though systemic change takes many decades there are pressing questions for me and I imagine for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage to weaken hidden systems of advantage and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily-awarded power to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.

Peggy McIntosh is Associate Director of the Wellesley College Center for Research for Women. Reprinted by permission of the author. This essay is excerpted from her working paper. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.”

I like biking because I feel empowered.

2010-10-01T14:56:00.001-06:00

[[This is something I wrote for another blog, the Power Special. It can be read as its own piece (you don't have to read anything but this if you so desire), but I refer to other people and ideas sometimes because it is in response to an ongoing conversation. That dialog started with this post (and its comments) and was continued on this post (and comments). I gave my 2 cents in the bit following:

Thoughts from a female biker:

Rarely do I see a naked lady on a bike that appears to actually know how to ride a bike. This Cinelli lady, for example. What's with the way she's pedaling? Totally inefficient. But that's not the point of this poster. It isn't about this woman at all. It isn't about who she is or where she's going, there is no context to tell us anything about this woman besides her gender and skin color, really. Again, that's not the point of the poster. It is to sell this bike, this brand. (I'm not sure I know what the designers concept was. There is this sort of minimal wall leading our eyes (or at least mine) to this odd modern-type building in the background, all within a semi surreal landscape. Then a naked woman glides out of the wall, supposedly going really fast (her hair?) ? Sure, it's an "interesting poster," or whatever. But now that's not my point.) Imagine the woman in clothing. Boring, right? It's a girl on a bike. So what. She has to be naked -though we all know very well what she looks like under her clothes- for this poster to have the effect they wanted. Because it's not about her. It's about her body and how it attracts. Body body body.

But as Adam mentioned, using sex to sell: is it appropriate? Whether or not it is appropriate, it sure is used. I think this reaches into censorship a bit. But say we use naked ladies to advertise crayons for elementary school kids? Or naked mothers? Why is that not okay?

So what is wrong with body body body? Why do I take offense?
I'm not completely sure, actually. Compare the poster to the other picture from that first post. The man in the ford jersey, perhaps during a cyclocross race.

It is all about him. The muscles in his legs, the momentum of his arms and body climbing the hill, the way he carries the bike on his shoulder, his face, the pleasure/excitement on his face. There is a real story going on here, a story about a man and his bike and this race. I don't know a thing about the naked woman (I don't even believe that she rides bikes) so I look at her as a body, as an image. As "women in general." And yes, the female form is beautiful. But in our flippant use of it I feel a lessening of that beauty, of the sacred, if you will. It's a "general form of beauty." Typical, normal, common. Instead of unique, incredibly complex, and mysterious, as I personally feel about my body. Media seems to simplify our form: face, boobs, waist, butt, legs. But as a woman, my body is incredibly complex and hard to understand/predict. So to be seen or to see my own self as a body, as an object, as basic shapes and sex appeal, really screws up the way I see myself, the things I identify with. It isn't about how I think or my brilliant ideas, it's about my body and what my body should look like, or more, what I know brings attention to me. It's not about the conversations I have or my ability to understand and advance complex ideas, it's about my bra size.

Consider this, taken from Davey Davis's blog:

"To further this post for a moment, I had some interesting conversations with my mom and Jessica about girls in bikinis covered in mud riding bikes. I mentioned those words and they both shuddered, immediately jumping to a set of images in their mind where women are demeaned by their depiction. Porn, superficial entertainment, and other spectacles. I look at the women in these pictures and see precisely the opposite. I see people empowered by their strength who are exhibiting their bodies and kicking ass at the same time. I am impressed more than indulged. The first woman's poise blows me away. She's VICTORY, and dirty, tired, tense. She's earned that nakedness, as far as I'm concerned, and owns it. I'm proud of her, jealous of her, want to know her story. In short she's more real, in a way, than all the other pointless, superficial lumps of flesh the internet contains."

Now compare these women to these (Luke, I know you love comparing):

The difference is incredible.

On another note:

Starting sometime when we (women) start getting close to puberty, we start hearing warnings, advice on how to survive in this world. Scary stories about rape and murder and dark corners and scary men. We are taught to fear. We've learned to lock our car doors the second we get in them. We've learned to go to restrooms in groups. We've learned to carry out keys (especially at night) in a closed fist with one key sticking out between our fingers. A decent, fast, unexpected weapon. We've learned how to break a man’s nose with the intension of jamming it into his brain. We’ve been taught to kick and punch and bite and scream. Many women I know carry mace or other defensive things in their purses, always. We learn these things from each other, from older women, from natural instinct. I remember how much fun I had at a young women’s activity (I was raised lds) when we spent an hour and a half learning defensive techniques from my leader (who had a black belt in karate) and “practicing” them on a partner. We laughed the whole time. But oh how serious it really is. What I’ve wondered, though, is if men get as many lessons in respecting women as women get in fearing men.

I am not one of those women who carries mace in my purse. Nor my keys in my fist. I personally feel that doing so can project false assumptions and false fears onto a perfectly innocent situation. I don’t walk around in fear. But my mind easily kicks in to the defensive mode when my body physiologically tells me I’m in a situation of potential danger. But instead of seeing an approaching man as scary and dangerous, I make eye contact with him. I quietly confront him with my eyes, sometimes saying hello. This puts a face on me and a face on him, instead of both of us hiding, me in my fear and discomfort, him in his mask of "man."

But what is really important here is bikes. On my bike I am empowered. I am faster than men on foot (and even bikes, a lot of the time. Yeah, I’m fast). I am in control of most situations on my bike. I don’t have fear of other people on my bike. It is like a shield of some kind. I know that my bike can get me anywhere I need to go, thanks to the strength and endurance of my own body. That’s the beauty of it, really. My body. When I’m climbing a hill, trying to make the speed reader on south temple go over 35mph, racing cars on the sharrow of second south, I look down at my legs, my stomach, my arms, I visualize my muscles and push them as hard as I can. And I smile. I love the power that comes from my body into the pedals, into the pull on the handlebars, and translates into speed, into power. Human generated power. I suppose this could be a conquering for me too, in a way. Pushing through the limits of speed that our human bodies alone cannot pass. Cars, motorcycles, they can give a similar feeling, that rush of adrenaline, but when it is my own body creating and feeling that power, that is conquering.

More than this is the feeling of being in control of my own life, control of what happens to me, what people see when they look at me. We (not just women, but everyone) are subject to the viewer. It is hard to feel understood. Some people wear clues (outdoorsy people wear chacos and sporty backpacks, girly girls wear heals and fancy hair, preps wear the plaid shorts and flipflops, (not fair generalizations, I know, but go with it), hints or shortcuts that can help us (the viewer) know something more about that person. It is nice to be understood. As a female biker I can display myself in such a way that potentially gives me a little more respect (or something) than when I'm walking on the sidewalks. I give viewers context, extra information through my speed, my toned calf muscles, the way I control my bike. I tell some of my story and the viewer is forced to see it. I am more than just a body, more than a pretty face, I am a woman on a bike and I could probably beat you at sprints.

[HUGE side note: I have heard from some people that women ask to be objectified, ask to be stared at. True, for some. It is pleasing to be looked at. But that has evolved into a very specific gaze, a specific objectification. I am not looked at for my eyes, my smile, my story, but my boobs, my butt, the imagined grace I might have in this sex position or that. And that, my friends, is incredibly tiring. (We can feel it. We can feel the difference between the many types of gazes. Just yesterday I received a “gaze” that was so respectful and equal, I wanted to turn my bike around and hug the man. But true, some women project their fears onto too many men and expect that because they are a man they are therefor gazers and evil and objectifying. Which is not true.) Sometimes being looked at in an “objectifying” way makes me wish I didn’t have a body with boobs and a vagina. Makes me hate sex and feel sick at the thought of my body. When I pass a man, even when on my bike, and he stares at my chest the whole time I pass him, never once meeting my eye contact, I want to tear my breasts off and throw them at him, let him obsess over them as a piece of fat and flesh. But when they are a part of my body (as they frequently are), part of how he sees me and understands me, and really the ONLY way he understands me in that moment, that is when I feel the least amount of control. I lose my sense of self and feel for that moment that that is all I am, that is all that matters about me. And that is my sense of objectification.]]

In response to Max’s idea that “power is dead.” I think this is an interesting ideal, but completely unrealistic. It would be really, really great if the way we lived and spoke and moved and saw was equal (thus powerless, if you will. No hierarchy, no me you, us them), but it isn’t and never will be. Not that we shouldn’t strive for that, definitely definitely. But I think it is in our nature (mostly the nature of men, as you said,) to dominate and control. Consider the countless women abused in domestic relations. That is power. And the powerless. The conquering of people.

[In my mind all of the problems between men and women stem from our bodies. The body of a typical man is stronger than the body of a typical woman. I found this out when I was young and my younger brother who was still smaller than me could pin me when we wrestled. It scared me. I realized that something was very different about our bodies. So power and dominance comes from that strength. And women literally can’t fight back. Also, the physical form of our sex organs. Women have this void or their own little cave, that is either completed or made whole, if you will, by a man's corresponding body part, or broken into and ravaged by an unwelcome piece of flesh (that again, they often have no ability to stop). Imagine, as hard as you can possibly imagine, that you have a vagina, no penis. How does that change the way you identify? What does it make you feel? Be honest with yourself. Anyways, this is an interesting concept, but I won't take it further just now.]

But, Max, I don’t think women are looking to be dominating. I think women have been pushed into the negatives in many ways and have to get back to a zero, a level playing field. Yes, men should strive to be more feminine (some men think they are way up above zero, above the equal field), but this zero is a middle both sides have to work towards. And how often do men “step down” to a “lower level?” So I don’t know if that idea is even realistic. So women try to clamber up to and beyond the dominating men to prove that they are equal. You/Montague are right, women in suits acting like men is not-that-rad. But if we don't wear suits, you might stare at our boobs. We just want to be seen as equal.

Does any of this make sense? Not “does any of this finalize or conclude anything?” that’s not what I’m going for, because I don’t like finalized things. But are my ideas coming across? Who knows.

Lastly, I am not striving for equality with men. Why? Because I am already equal. This is so totally obvious to me. That knowledge doesn't get rid of the men who still pretend that I am not, but my understanding of myself is strong enough to push through them. Every day I deal with some kind of "proving myself" ritual. Either at school (I'm studying architecture. Some men have quite the ego), at work (I'm working in the architecture shop on campus. I blow people's minds when I actually know what I'm talking about in there), on my bike, even in simple conversation. So I am not looking to be equal. I honestly already know that I am equal to anyone I'll ever meet. And when people don't see/understand/respect that, I pity them. If they are unjust I stand up and yell, I never get walked on, but I don't scream for my equality because I don't acknowledge that this inequality exists. It doesn't, for me. I see it everywhere, all around me, and sometimes women bring themselves down without the help of degrading men (they seem to think it's cute to be dumb), but that will change. So in response to Katie's comment, "women have not necessarily stepped up to the roles that have been newly opened for them," I definitely agree. Not all women have embraced this newly possibly place in the world. The real question is why not? Perhaps because they don't know any better. Perhaps because they haven't had any positive males in their lives that remind them of their infinite potential (as I have). Perhaps because they don't have the strength to withstand the battering that comes with being a confident, strong woman. Perhaps because they are afraid. I don't blame women for being so slow to fill these roles of equal standing, but how are we going to teach them that they are worthy of it?

In the end, I still love many men. I don't want to sound like a hater. I do remember that there are two sides to equality. More, infinites sides. Or no sides. Just a level ground. And I wish to respect everyone, if they'll respect me. Because as Max said, in the end it is all about our ability to love and communicate and unite.

My Religious (or not) Beliefs Part 5

2010-09-11T20:55:00.019-06:00

This is the last of a five part blog post made up of an email conversation I had with a good friend, Leah. I broke it up into pieces so it was less daunting to read. It ends abruptly, she moved back to SLC around the time of this email, so now we talk in person. But I'd love to continue this conversation in any direction for the rest of my life.

[Continuation of my response to Leah. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4]

So let's see. Mormonism. If we were to look at a couple of the articles of faith or something, maybe I could talk a little bit about what I (don't) believe. God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost. Okay, so I don't feel that God is A man, like I said before. It's everyone, everywhere. Same thing though, I guess. Perhaps Jesus was the closest a man has come to understanding the real meaning of this existence, and that makes him close to a god, or something. The holy ghost, that's just real connection, a real tap into the core of us all, the energy of life. And past that, if I don't believe that god/Jesus are what you believe they are,
it would be hard for me to believe in Joseph Smith. (I don't like talking about Joe Smith to you, because I know that you love him so much. You taught me a lot about him because of that class you took. I don't like feeling that I might offend you. so don't be offended, okay? I'm like you, I'm not saying this because I think you should hear it, simply because it's how I see things. Sometimes I think my parents feel like I'm doing things to hurt them. But it's not about them, it's about how I see things. If I could think differently without hurting them, I would.)

That conversation with my sister at Café Rio when the train went by and everything started changing? We had been talking about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. For some reason those two things were the last things I wanted to think about in my doubting. They were just always the most comfortable. I have never felt a real connection with Christ, I always prayed hard and wanted to feel something, atonement wise, but never have (and yes, I paid my tithing and wasn’t addicted to porn and read the scriptures and prayed and wanted to believe. But I’m sure there is something to point at, some reason that I didn’t feel that connection with Christ, some blockade of my fault. Of course, as always). But the book of mormon, that was different. It was a book! And books are really, really cool. Reading it through the few times I did was always a good experience. I'm all about living books, books that teach lessons, books that change the world. So anyways, when those two things started losing their foundations for me, that's when everything hit. For some reason I kept believing in mormonism way longer than I believed in god. Explain that, eh?

Adam and Eve. I don't think they were created. They might have been one of the first humans that could communicate with each other or something, but science makes more sense for me in this area. Science is really, really cool. And it's real. Which is a problem. It's sad when religious people ignore science. I think it is possible to balance science and religion, but total rejection of either is not that rad. Plus, I'm bummed about Eve's position. Created from man. Have you heard of Lilith? I think her story is cool. Look her up on wiki. What is most interesting is how she is now a demon. So tricky, this male world. But this is not mormonism. But when I don't believe these bigger things, it's harder to believe a branch of it.

Joseph Smith, though. Whether or not he was inspired by god, he was one hell of a man. Either very in tune with... something, or the most creative, incredible person. I feel he is more the latter. Which is impressive, but I don't believe in him as a prophet anymore. Just one of the most interesting people ever.

But then there are other issues, like how many silly things Brigham Young said, (but again, men get in the way of true doctrine sometimes, right? Men are not perfect.) how women are not equal to men (we could talk about this one if you want, I've heard a lot. I haven't been through the temple, of course, but what I know about the temple doesn't really change my thoughts about it. But this is something I talked about a lot for a long time. So I know what a lot of lds people say in this conversation, but it still isn't good enough for me.), the church's stand on gays, selective obedience (I just made that up, but I mean things like following SO intensely to stay away from alcohol but completely looking over things like beasts and fowls are for the use of man but are to be used sparingly, only in times of winter or famine. Silly, nit-picky things like that. But it still isn't okay).

I don't know about the book of mormon. It could be fake, making Joseph Smith a brilliant (and insane) man, but he could have found plates. It's possible. And it's a good book. There are some good things to learn from it. But it does encourage racism and war. Which is not that rad. Nahom, yeah, the burial place of Ishmael? It's one of the places that archeologists have found some good congruencies with the description in the BoM, right? Interesting, yes. It is hard to think of that as a coincidence. But it could be. Nothing is for sure.

The bible, correct? What does that mean? I think it must be an account of real people or places or what not, but kept by religious people. Think of it, a bible kept by non religious people! That would be interesting. Is it real? Well, it is old, that is for sure, but it has definitely been through the hands of many people. And one sided people, usually. It's useful, sure. I don't know, I don't care very much for the Bible. There are so many scary people in the world that use the bible as their sword, to hurt other people. And I don't like that. So it is useful for personal search and understanding, but not useful when it gets into the hands of mean people.

Christ was hyped up because he was one of the nicest people to have ever been written about. Of course everyone likes him! I like him too. He's just soooo nice. I think I wouldn't have liked him in real life though, he might have been too weird, but I like the idea of him. He's loving. Devine.. it might mean super in tune with humanity, with love. Love is really what it all comes down to, right? But he is interesting to think about if you imagine that there isn't a god the father.

The watchmaker philosophy is cool, yeah. I think it's possible that there is a maker, but not likely. I think this whole universe has just been spinning along for gazzilions of years, and every single little human born onto however many earths there are has wondered why they are there. Which is pretty cool to think about. But I think religion comes naturally from that question. But yeah, it's more possible that we evolved. Over almost as many gazzilions of years, of course.

No, I didn't think your last email was a lot of silliness. I was very detached as I read it, it just doesn't do anything for me anymore, but I don't not respect your beliefs. Your emails are just as silly as mine from each other’s shoes. But I believe mine, you believe yours. So I guess yeah, medium silly, but more just inapplicable. I don't think you are silly though, that's what really matters.

This conversation can (and probably will) go on forever. It's harder when it starts getting specific like this. Each tiny little branch of the lds gospel could be talked about for hours. But I love philosophy. Let's keep talking.

My Religious (or not) Beliefs Part 4

2010-09-11T20:55:00.018-06:00

Leah's response to me, followed by my response to her. [Click here for part one, part two, part three. Me, Leah]

I like that we were both equally bold. I just say things like I see them, and you see things like you see them. It's great. Are you afraid of being wrong? With a period? Like, "that's it, I believed in something my whole life because I was afraid to search/think/invest myself into anything different, because where I was born/placed was comfortable, so I stayed there and in the end I don't know if I was right. I don't know if I was duped. I don't know if there was something that would have sat in my brain better."

Why is mormonism untrue? I don't think you've explicitly said that it isn't true, but in some ways you have. You know, it's easy for lots of people not to question it. Not easy for you, not easy for me.
Do you think of the Book of Mormon as forged? As what? (These questions aren't in an accusatory tone, in a curious one.) Do you know about Nahom?
Do you think the Bible is correct? Is real? Is, useful?
Obviously, Christ lived. But what do you think of Him. A person hyped up for who knows why? Why Christ,in your mind? Who is He to you? Is/was He divine? The whole world's been buzzing about Him for a few thousand years.
It's okay if you don't have opinions about everything too. Or if you're in the middle of discovering
your opinion and it's not set in stone yet.
Your email was so good. Now I know things about you that I didn't know. I don't think you're wrong about things either. I think you're right. I know you hate wrongs and rights, but deal with my terminology k?
It's so late. But I'm happy. Talk to a counselor. I want to too sometimes. I have problems, but in a way, I love having problems. I remember you telling me about the watch on the beach, and the world having a maker too. Do you still think that? Did you think my last email was a lot of silliness? Do you think I'm duped? Be honest. It's okay if you think that. Promise. I've thought a ton about why I have the beliefs I do since starting this. About how people become sure of one thing or another. It's good.

I'm not sure what you're asking in your first paragraph. Because the thoughts you describe would belong to someone who stays in the church or stays in what they were born into and go their whole life without challenging their beliefs because it was too scary but suddenly have this fear of another option as they are dying or something. So are you asking if I were to stay in the church, would I feel those things when I am on my deathbed? Because already I have found some things that sit better than some parts of the church, but because I don't feel like there is an ultimate right, or ultimate correct answer, I don't think there is an ultimate wrong, except maybe murder, rape, or hurting someone else in that way. But any other lifestyle, practically, (don't hold me to that generalization later, k?) could be "correct" as much as it could be incorrect. It just depends on the person, I suppose.

But for me? I think I'll go my whole life questioning everything around me, no matter how content or happy I am at the time. See, recently I realized that part of why I'm doubtful of things (like my current happiness or my "me" compared to "me" last year or 2 years ago or the "me" in 3 years, if I'm making the right decisions, etc) is because for the first 17 years of my life I believed in something that was so solid and founded that I was sure it would never shake (nor did I ever think of it doing so. That would be completely ridiculous! I would have to be doing something very wrong or be in a very bad place for me to have such a trial). But then things did shake. But oh so slowly. And yes, there is always a cause, if you want to point at things. Which makes me sad. For example, one could say, "well of course she left the church (or lives with her boyfriend or blah blah blah), she wasn't surrounding herself with the right people! Or she obviously wasn't paying her tithing! Or wasn't reading her scriptures or etc etc etc.

Lee, help me to understand this better. I've become so one sided on it, so tell me what you think. Why does the church encourage everyone to figure things out on their own, to doubt and ask and find (moroni 10:4&5?) but if one finds out the wrong thing, ie that the church isn't true, or that they don't like this or that, or that they are gay, they must have searched incorrectly? It isn't fair to encourage the search for a single answer. I feel. I know that the church (I don't actually enjoy saying "the church," because there are so many parts to it. Doctrine, culture, people, etc. But whateva.) knows that it/they are the one and only fullest best out there, so yeah, I suppose it makes sense that they should think that everyone should come to the same and right answer when they search. But doesn't it seem unfair? But, to be fair, there are some (like my mother) who remember, above all, that it is about agency, that we can choose our own path, and that that is the difference between god's plan and satan's plan. But I feel that too often the church doesn't allow that choice, that they are forcing THE way back to god, which is exactly what lucifer suggested, is it not? Of course they aren't forcing, but they reject (excommunicate, disown, repress, politically fight against) those who choose different paths. Which is wrong. I can't stand by it.

I just ranted. That section started out saying this: I knew so firmly that what I was doing was right. So now, after that has melted away ever so slowly, it is hard for me to trust my own self anymore. If something that I was so sure about is much less sure now, how will I trust anything I ever feel (happiness, for example) again? So yes, ultimately, I'm afraid of being wrong. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

New subject (by a tiny degree). At this point I don't think I would say that mormonism is untrue. Well, let's see. It isn't THE truth, for me, nor should it be for everyone. Especially people who aren't from our culture. I don't think an organized religion will ever work very well when it so cultured. I know that plenty of missionaries feel that they have seen the world and that they know that all those people are "ripe and ready to harvest" or whatever it is, but really, how does anyone feel comfortable presenting this very western organized thing on an entirely different people? I think it's silly. I try to support individual friends who serve missions, like you, because I like them and want them to do what they want, but I could never truly support the missionary system. I just don't think it's right to do.

BUT. I do understand that I'm thinking a lot about the "organized" part of it, and the culture that is here in utah. I do understand that the basic beliefs and values and doctrines can be universal. But I think the church has fallen from those basics in a certain direction. I respect people who make their religion personal and don't give a damn what other people think. But you see the opposite here. You see a lot of perfection on the surface, a lot of pressure and social observation, and a lot of personal/familial struggle, stressed under the cultural standards. I wasn't planning to talk about culture very much. We already knew that I don't like it very much. But it is hard not to talk about culture when I talk about the church because I don't know very many people who take the core doctrines and live them so purely that they are unaffected by the culture. You'd have to live alone, be the only lds person around, or live in the woods by yourself. I feel like man is what messes up the church. Egos and status. So as much as I'd like to only discuss doctrine, there is no ignoring what that doctrine manifests itself as in the people. I wonder if this is really annoying to read. I'm not mad. Promise. I'm sitting all slouched and causal, actually. Not even worked up at all. Like a 3 out of ten.

[My response continues in the final post]

My Religious (or not) Beliefs Part 3

2010-09-11T20:55:00.017-06:00

This is the third post of five from a discussion I had with a close friend of mine, Leah. I'm breaking the convo up to try to make it easier to read. We were hundreds of miles apart over the summer so one day this conversation started over email. It is long but tells a bit about how I see the world these days. (That said, I'll see it differently tomorrow. I'm only 21 after all.) I always want to be understood, and this is a feeble attempt to be so (in this moment, at least). As if anyone will every understand anyone as well as one might hope. I should try to cut it down and simplify it, but I enjoy the energy that reads through for me when our sections stay whole. I should refine this into a beautifully worded essay, do something at least a tiny bit more interesting than post blocks of text, but this is how it happened, and I love words, so this is how it'll be. I love talking about god and faith and religion, so if anyone has anything to say (here or in the next 4 posts), feel free. There's even an anonymous option if you are shy :)

[Click here fore part one, here for part two. Me, Leah]

My response to Leah

I don't look at mormons as pretenders. Sometimes, I guess, but usually I understand that many of them are just speaking of faith, hope, what they wish they believed and if they keep hoping it long enough it might become real enough to 'know.' But I too appreciate when something comes from the heart. We, you and I, can hear/feel/see the difference, can't we. It's great.

I feel things, but it is hard to explain, of course. I feel truths too, but not universal truths, by any means. I don't think I could ever say that something I feel is a truth is going to be the same truth for anyone else, even if I had a twin. I've just come to understand that every single one of us is sooo different for so many great reasons, ie where we live/d, our families, the conversations we've had our whole lives, the music we listen to, the way we were taught to think or feel, our physical environment, and of course, our personalities. So my truths, things that I can rarely even put into words, are felt in particular moments. I don't think I feel truths continuously, or something, I feel truths in a moment, like some people call feeling the spirit, and it feels good and peaceful or exciting, and I can remember that I felt that, but I can't recall the same emotions every time.

God for me is no longer A man, but more every man. The light of christ, you know? How it's in everyone? I think that's true (maybe minus the Christ part, just light). I feel connections with people so strongly some times. But really, god is this connection, this living thing inside all of us, every single one of us, male female gay straight white black christian muslim. And plants. I don't connect with animals like some people do, or stones or scents or anything, but I do with plants/nature, easy. But it's this energy, this love that lets any two people sit together, even if they don't speak the same language, and just draw pictures in the dirt, or climb a tree. You don't have to understand each other because there is a huge part of us that is all the same, and that is god. And that's SO cool. And that is why I love everyone. Because everyone is me, and I am them, and we are god, and god is us. And we are all here together, and we are made up of the earth, and we will become the earth again. Beautiful.

I like Jesus, he's nice and actually did love everyone. When more christians are like Jesus, I'll like them more too. I try to give everyone a chance, but hatred is not something I can stand by. I don't hate back, but I'll teach by example. It is messed up. And not very nice. People are too afraid of change and progression. The unknown. So much that it drives them to hatred. Once something becomes more personal, like a son being gay, people realize that difference is not bad, it's just different. We are all so comfortable with our answers and knowledge. I like discomfort. I like change and new situations. How else are we ever going to learn? We need to have conversation. We need to think about people and feelings, not about principle and law, legal or religious.

There might be an afterlife, but I doubt it. If there is, it's not how any of us think it will be. In my opinion. I'm fine with people believing otherwise, they let me do so. One day last fall, maybe October? Could have been November. I was at Cafe Rio, eating with my sister, Sara. I was facing North at the table, watching the traffic on 4th South. We were talking about religion, spirituality, life, etc, and suddenly I realized that everything was changing. Everything. The whole world shifted, nothing had meaning or made sense. (It was as if I had just lost the language by which I had labeled and understood everything my whole life). I watched the train go by outside, headed east, and I thought about the rails underneath and the wires above it, and I tried to understand them. I had to understand how it was possible that everything was around me, happening and functioning in the same exact way that it had happened mere seconds before, but in a totally different world. In a world where explanations weren't easy, where everything came down to science and reason. It scared the hell out of me. I thought the chair I was sitting in was going to start moving as fast as the passing train, or turn into a silky liquid. So I made it stop. I don't know how I did, but I thought, “this is uncomfortable and scary.” Scary in a way I've never experienced. So it stopped. I stopped my thoughts (more, accelerations) mid.... mid. Then looked down at the stupid, meaningless salad in front of me. But I picked up my fork and kept eating it, because that was easier than dealing with melting chairs.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is something that I still won't be able to say very well, even in this whole next paragraph. But one thing: sometimes members of the church say things like, it's easy to doubt, hard to have faith. Which can be true, sure, especially for people who just don't care and once they skip church once they forget about it and don't even wonder if they made a good decision ten years later. But doubting is not easy. This is why I'm okay with people believing in an afterlife. I am less okay with other things, ie believing that x group of people aren't "as right" as y group of people, because that creates a good, right, and bad, wrong. Which then creates misunderstandings and distance, which leads to fear and hatred, which leads to hurt feelings. Which ruins EVERYTHING. Anyways. It's nice to believe in an afterlife. It gives purpose to everything! What the bleep is life all about if this is it, right? And it gives people something to work for when realizing that there is the possibility of nothing scares the living daylight out of them. But why work for something beyond what we can know? Especially when it damages what is here, what is now, who is now.

But something is backwards to me. For example: my chiropractor is pretty lds. He's an interesting person and I love talking to him. One morning, 7:30 ish am, he was really happy. I asked why he was so happy that day and he said because he loves his wife. I just smiled or something, being so tired. He then told me that he was talking to someone the day before about time and all eternity. He expressed how he feels that to be married ‘til death do we part doesn't give you any reason to invest in your spouse. That there is no reason, if life is all we've got, to do anything, to do good, to even know what is right and wrong. (This sounds SO messed up right now, like somehow I misinterpreted it, but I feel like it's something that many religious people feel.) Because it was 7:30 I didn't feel like responding. I just looked at him. And he was so happy that he didn't even notice that I didn't respond.

But in my head I was thinking about how backwards that was. How if this is all there is, if this short life is all we've got, then why the hell wouldn't we put every piece of our soul into it? If you really, really love someone, enough that you feel it could extend through the eternities, then found out (or not) that it only lasts ‘til death, who in the world would throw up his/her hands and do nothing? Wouldn't you put every bit of energy and love and experience and opportunity and growth into that relationship? Into every single relationship around you? Every day might be my last. How is that meaningless? That is everything! Literally, everything. And when suddenly the rights and wrongs that were so clear and obvious and real get swept away with a passing train and you start melting into the ground, who says bummer, I'm just going to waste away now, nothing matters? Some might, but I have to reconstruct that meaning. Reconstruct isn't right. Rediscover. Right and wrong is no longer written by god. I have to look at the world around me and figure out how I fit in and why, how I think people should behave and why. What biases am I bringing to my conversations? Everything gets erased, and that is terrifying. Not easy, not easy at all. It would be easier, and sometimes I wish I could let myself, to believe, to have all the answers, but they aren't right anymore, for me. So I have to find them myself.

Lee. "Keep up your truth-seeking. Don't be dumb about it, which to me means, don't take things at face-value, and don't expect to find the truth by only surrounding yourself in what you know--then you're not in a search at all, the end result is determined before you begin. Be balanced. Be sincere. Pray. Read. Talk to all sorts of people. Think in your head. Feel in your heart." But seriously. I love you tons.

Yeah, failure is everything. That's why it sucks. I feel like talking about it makes me worse at it though, you know? Like knowing about things that make you anxious makes you weaker somehow. I wish I didn't realize that I am afraid of failure. Yes, failure is letting myself down, more than anything else. And yes, there is an element with the mormon society. That's why I want to tell everyone what I feel and why, so that they can't walk away thinking I'm a failure. Well, that's not exactly right. But I don't want them to think that they have somehow done better than me. Comparing is dumb. Really, I feel crippled by my perfectionism. And I feel more crippled when I acknowledge that. Brutal.

True, I don't want to pop comfortable bubbles, because I can remember how comfortable it is. But when it is also a bubble of fear or hate, I'll pop it. But I'm a people pleaser. I don't want them to be mad at me for any reason. Which is completely silly. How am I ever going to get anything done if I try to stay on everyone's good side?

[tbc: part four]

My Religious (or not) Beliefs Part 2

2010-09-11T20:55:00.016-06:00

To my few readers and the world at large: This is the second post of five from a discussion I had with a close friend of mine, Leah. I'm breaking the convo up to try to make it easier to read. We were hundreds of miles apart over the summer so one day this conversation started over email. It is long but tells a bit about how I see the world these days. (That said, I'll see it differently tomorrow. I'm only 21 after all.) I always want to be understood, and this is a feeble attempt to be so (in this moment, at least). As if anyone will every understand anyone as well as one might hope. I should try to cut it down and simplify it, but I enjoy the energy that reads through for me when our sections stay whole. I should refine this into a beautifully worded essay, do something at least a tiny bit more interesting than post blocks of text, but this is how it happened, and I love words, so this is how it'll be. I love talking about god and faith and religion, so if anyone has anything to say (here or in the other 4 posts), feel free. There's even an anonymous option if you are shy :)

Note: Leah calls me Judy. Also, this is me talking, this is Leah.

[If you want to understand what's going on, READ THIS (part one). Me, Leah.]

Leah's response:

Do you look at Mormons as pretenders? As testifiers of things they're not sure about? I do sometimes. I love when I hear something that I know is coming out of someone's heart. Something they're sure of. I try only to do that. But now all the biggies I'm sure about. My brain is like yours, Judy. It thinks. I often describe it as a separate entity from "me". It is always just chugging along, thinking hard and trying to figure stuff out. Sometimes it comes to good conclusions, "I" get to reap the benefits, and then it continues to eat at the next thing. I also can't hear/read something without digesting it. I never just overlook things. At first I thought this meant that I was a doubter. I was afraid to read and pray about the BoM because I didn't want to not feel anything at the end. (This was not that long ago). *I'm not telling you this because I think you need to hear it, but to explain how I view religion. Don't get the impression that I'm trying to shove stuff down your throat. I'm afraid of that. I like your brain. I like truth-seekers. I am one. You are one. Then I came to the beautiful conclusion that I could read and pray about it as many times as I wanted. Strangely that brought a lot of relief to me. I expected it to be true, but I didn't necessarily expect to feel that right away.

How do you go about feeling things? After all, this is what our whole confirmation and acceptance of so many bizarre concepts is based on, in the LDS church, that is. God is a master-teacher. He knows that everybody learns in different ways. You know when you get taught in young women's stuff like, "everybody feels the Holy Ghost differently, for me, I bawl like a baby, etc, etc..." Well, I believe that. I think everybody feels differently. I realized what mine is. I can recognize truth. I don't know how exactly, but I can recognize truth. So, that's what my "testimony" is based upon. My testimony is a pile of truth, oh how I wish the pile was bigger. Like a mountain. Like one of those big mountains in Nepal.

The trouble (or blessing) of it all is this, once you get one of those confirmations, like the BoM, or whatever, then it's always attached to another, so by inference you suddenly know all of them are true. But I still feel like figuring out each principle one at a time. So I go along doing it. And it happens for me, and I love it. Sometimes it takes forever, but it happens, and I'm always in the middle of figuring out the next principle. I wish you'd been through the Temple cause there's an emphasis on this discerning truth and gaining truth thing. I like it. I like the Temple and don't at all think it's weird.

The older I get the more I know God. I know what He's like. What He wants. What makes Him tick. I'd love to have "the mind of God" myself, like Isaiah talked about. But I don't. I have Leah's mind. And, in fact, I'm quite happy with that--for now. God's a man. God's a person. And I'm determined to change until I'm like Him. This is the grand truth of eternity. God is an exalted Man, and we can be like Him.

We get mocked like crazy for this belief. We get punched in the face and called freaks for it. I once typed in the popular Lorenzo Snow quote, "As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become." in google, and I was smothered with opposition to it. What these criticizers fail to ask themselves is the question the statement begs about God Himself. What does it tell us about the character of God? What does it say about the type of God the mormons believe in? It says everything. He's the type of person who wants to give us everything He has--by definition, a father. They are missing the boat, claiming that the statement is demeaning and blasphemous. I don't know why this doctrine isn't canonized in the scriptures. That's one thing that sort of baffles me. Joseph Smith taught it clearly, we believe it, but it's almost hush-hush among mormons even. I don't shut my trap about it. You know, it's even in the Bible. All through the Bible. If you care to know where you can ask me, but I don't know if you do.

I just started typing, to be honest. I'm not sure where I'm at, or what direction I'm going. I want to say this. Think of the patriarchal order, of marriage in general, as a type. Just like everything else, marriage, and manhood and womanhood are here to teach us what Jesus is like. That might sound weird, but it's true. Christ is Himself the beloved Bridegroom. We're the wife. Man, women, the whole Earth. God established marriage (and the patriarchal order) a certain way to teach us about Jesus, and about how our relationship with Him should be. It's symbolic. We live by it, but the world is rejecting it. There's so much more to this. But maybe that is new to you. Maybe not. Oh boy, I'm on to something else. Hold on.

Everything God gives us is to point to Jesus, or testify of him. Everything. Why? Because Jesus saves us and because God's not trying to keep this knowledge a secret. There's an atonement, and God desperately wants us to use it. Which also reveals more about God's character. He's nice. He truly wants us saved. In fact, that's exactly what the endowment is. In theory, slash, in truth, everyone is going to have to go through the Temple, either in person or by proxy. Why? Because it guarantees to God that every one of His children see exactly how to get back to Him--how to be saved and exalted and become like Him. Of course He wants everyone to know that. The endowment, as I said, guarantees that. From A to Z it shows us how to make use of the atonement and be saved. That's what goes on in the Temple, Leah version. True version. The biggest tragedy of the world is that after all God tries to do to teach us of Jesus, we don’t know him. We won’t know him. That's another truth. Had to throw it in.

Oh brother. I'm yapping now. I could yap about eternity for eternity. I love it, in fact. I'd even give up music for it. There's some sort of fire in me about it. Sometimes it just jumps out of me. Didn't know this email was going to be a target.

Judy. Keep up your truth-seeking. Don't be dumb about it (which to me means, don't take things at face-value, and don't expect to find the truth by only surrounding yourself to its opposition--then you're not in a search at all, the end result is determined before you begin. Be balanced. Be sincere. Pray. Read. Talk to all sorts of people. Think in your head. Maybe even feel in your heart.) Keep changing. It's great that you're changing. That's actually, and just that simply, the purpose of life as I see it. Actually that's another truth. (Do you hate what a know-it-all I am? I just hate to sound like I'm not 100% about things when I really am. I feel like a cheap-skate.)

I loved your "what makes you happy paragraph". They looked more like lyrics to a nice song than part of an email. You like yourself, huh? I get that feeling. Not in a self-centered, dumb and yucky way, but in a comfortable way. I like you too. I find it funny that fear of failure is your biggest thing. You're right, what is failure? Letting yourself down? Failing to be right about something? Failing in the eyes of the world, of mormon society? Failing to please? It can be lots of things. You better just let it go before you start failing.

I don't feel like I know lots more about you now. Maybe a little more, but not lots. However, I was enlightened to find out that you don't want to lead people one way or another. You don't want to pop that mormon bubble of safety, or oblivion among your old Bountiful Buddies. And surprised to think that you thought you might jeopardize our friendship by disagreeing. Good thing I don't think that, or I wouldn't have written this email. Don't think that. You can always disagree with me. Even though I speak as though I'm an eye-witness to everything.

[tbc my response: part three]

My Religious (or not) Beliefs Part 1

2010-09-11T20:55:00.015-06:00

To my few readers and the world at large: This is the first post of five from a discussion I had with a close friend of mine, Leah. I'm breaking the convo up to try to make it easier to read. We were hundreds of miles apart over the summer so one day this conversation started over email. It is long but tells a bit about how I see the world these days. (That said, I'll see it differently tomorrow. I'm only 21 after all.) I always want to be understood, and this is a feeble attempt to be so (in this moment, at least). As if anyone will every understand anyone as well as one might hope. I should try to cut it down and simplify it, but I enjoy the energy that reads through for me when our sections stay whole. I should refine this into a beautifully worded essay, do something at least a tiny bit more interesting than post blocks of text, but this is how it happened, and I love words, so this is how it'll be. I love talking about god and faith and religion, so if anyone has anything to say (here or in the next 4 posts), feel free. There's even an anonymous option if you are shy :) So here it begins with a section from Leah's first email and my first response. This part is a bit vague, we get bolder as time goes on.

Note: Leah calls me Judy. Also, this is me talking, this is Leah.

How has Davey changed your religious views, or has he at all? Do you feel conflicted? Does your family know that you're living with him and do they react? I bet they know. What are you unsure about as far as our church goes? Nothing culturally--I know you hate all slash most of that. What doctrinally bothers you? What are you most afraid of? What makes you happiest?

For a long time I liked to think that everything I thought was my own thought, but it wasn't, and isn't, never has been, never will be. I am easily affected. I'll read something, even just a novel or something, then 2 years later realize that what it said changed me in some way, without my intending to have it do so. I just think about things so much that little sneaks by without being digested.

That said, I am glad to know that my thoughts and feelings on things spiritual are still my own. I have to test it once in a while, to make sure I'm not running off of someone else's beliefs or disbeliefs, you know? Because sometimes I do believe things or disbelieve things because someone I trust believes them or disbelieves them. Not only with spiritual things, but everything. Science too. I have to figure it out on my own, even with Davey. He'll tell me something and I ask, "How do you know?" so much that he’ll feel like I don't trust what he knows or learns. I have to be careful with it. But then I end up looking things up on my own anyways, just to make sure he or whoever got it right.

I always feel conflicted. It's what I do. But I have never been straightforward with you about my religious beliefs, mostly because I like you so much. I was always afraid that you wouldn't like me as much if I didn't believe the same things as you. It's too often the case with people. So I just didn't/don't tell people very much. Remember that talk I gave in church? Were you there? I didn't even close with a testimony, I just said I liked being there. Also, I've never wanted to influence people. I have had too many friends look up to me growing up, I didn't want to scare them or make them doubt any of their beliefs because of me. So I'm always vague, like this, until someone asks me straight up, like you have in this email.

Because of this whole don't ask don't tell thing I do, where I just don't bother people with the burden of worrying about me and my spirituality if they don't ask, some of my family were pretty surprised when I told them that I was moving in with D. They all know, but no one confronts me about it. Only halfish of my family is lds. My parents are. So the isn'ts didn't care, were happy for me, whatever, and the is siblings were pretty fine with it, it's hard to invest too much emotion into each sibling because everybody does so many different things, you know? But my parents were sad. They are fine, I'm sure they are sad and pray for me every night and everything, which makes me feel a few different things, but it's all fine. My family doesn't talk about hard things. My family and people from my family's ward and my lds friends and such would rather just talk to me like everything is fine and dandy, instead of saying, "what the hell, Jessica, what are you doing?" I'd love to talk to everyone about “what I'm doing” and why, but instead everyone pretends like all is well. Even though deep in their beliefs I’m going to hell. Slash not the celestial kingdom. Not talking about it makes me anxious and paranoid, like we're all hiding from ourselves and each other.

Well, friend. Had you asked me this two years ago I would be able to answer what you asked, what I'm unsure about. But in the last while I've come to many conclusions. Well, not really conclusions. I think conclusions are bad. It's like a period, the end, no change, no discussion. But really, I can talk to people about the church and its members, understand its doctrine and practices, represent it fairly in a biased conversation, etc, because I was raised so fully in it, but I don't identify with many of its doctrines anymore. Ah, so much to talk about. Culturally, yeah, it's all sad. I wish everyone would just love each other. Like really, really love each other. A friend of mine was excommunicated because he's gay. That makes me really, really sad. Doctrinally, I understand god in a different way. But only barely. Different enough to be considered blasphemous, surely, but oh so much still the same. Also, I'm a feminist (in a pretty not annoying way, but quite a feminist, still) so most of the patriarchal set up doesn't jive with me. I think we're all equal, through and through.

I am most afraid of failure. This reaches into almost every single aspect of my life and it very frustrating to me. And failure can mean almost anything.

I'm not sure what makes me happiest. Happiness is a sliding scale, I've realized. I don't know if any of the "happy" feelings I've felt in my whole life are ever the same emotion. They just classify easily into "happy." But really, sometimes what makes me happiest is laughing with my siblings, or talking to my mom. But sometimes what makes me happiest, so happy that I literally feel like I'm going to fly out of my body, is when I'm listening to music and watching a storm move in. Or sitting in a grove of aspen trees at Zeeks cabin. Or listening to Viva la Vida with my best friends. Sometimes it's when I'm on my bike, sometimes it's when I'm sitting next to Davey, sometimes when I've had a great conversation with someone, or realized a truth. Based on this, I realize that a lot of what makes me happiest is people, a select few of them, and nature, and self-reflection, and music. So there you have it.

[tbc: part two]

School

2010-09-10T14:53:00.000-06:00

This is the beginnings of my studio project, it's a quick one, only 4 or so weeks. Maybe five. These are just scrap pieces I'm messing around with. We'll see what happens.

Interesting

2010-09-09T11:18:00.000-06:00

This is good news for human rights activists, but more interesting to me is how little it's being talked about. Media is so strange and unfair in it's pick and choose methods. But when this gets to the federal government and an amendment to the constitution starts to go through, the media will go crazy. We are sooo fed by what we hear and read. Crazy.

(I'm going to revive this blog starting right now. I have plenty to say but not much time to say it.)

I am no longer afraid of death.

2010-07-31T15:10:00.000-06:00

A couple of months ago I was thinking a lot about death. Someone I knew had just passed away after a fight with cancer, and some modest mouse lyrics hit me during a seemingly innocent but apparently very vulnerable moment.

And in the places you go you’ll see the place where you’re from,

But in the faces you meet you’ll see the place where you’ll die,

And on the day that you die you’ll see the people you met,

And in the faces you see you’ll see just who you’ve been.

I suddenly realized that I was terrified of death. Or at least I was in that moment. But a couple weeks later I experienced an emptiness that felt like death, complete emptiness. And it was wonderful.

On a Wednesday, the 9^th of June, I went to a guided meditation with Sara over in Sugar House where she used to have a massage studio. I don’t meditate very often, not in this way. There were probably nearly 20 people there; we sat on chairs in a circle around a pretty stone with another small stone and some candles on it.

When the guy came in, I don’t remember his name, one of Sara’s former professors, we all kept chatting for five or so minutes then finally he said “let’s just sit here for a while.” So we did. I was really sleepy so I was happy to not have to “try to meditate.” I just let my thoughts go all blurry and started rocking back and forth like I was nodding off. But it wasn’t a violent rocking nod like in school, just a gentle cradling of my own body.

Then after a long time of that I fell into this silence. And it was pitch black. When I was young I remember talking to Camille Boyce about nothingness. One of us asked the other what we saw in our mind when we imagined nothing, no humans no earth no stars no universe no sound no temperature. I see black. Pitch black. She saw white. Anyways, in this silence that I had fallen into, it was that same black. The only time I’ve ever actually “seen” that darkness. More felt, I guess. But I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel my chair or my feet against the ground or even my spine compressing as I sit, like it does. The music that was playing was gone, but I didn’t notice that. I was definitely there. I had thoughts, at least. I had no memory though, no references to place my name, age, gender, or favorite color. I just simply existed. And it felt really good. No thought of time or place or people or things. Just existence.

Everyone always says “peaceful” and I wish I had a better word, but it was; it was peaceful. But an empty peace. Not a sad empty, and not a joyous peace, but a void of everything, everything good and bad and up and down. I have no idea how long I was there, in that blackness. It could have been ten seconds, could have been a day. There was no way of knowing, no reference. And I didn’t get bored. Just content.

But then something started to bring me back. Some thought came from somewhere that said, “Wait a second, I swear there was something with me before.” I started remembering a circle and that I was part of it. My mind just slowly moved to this circle, a circle of people, and why I was there. It took forever, a slow churning of nonexistent memory. Eventually I remembered that I was part of a meditation group and that we were sitting in a circle, but I couldn’t remember where everyone had gone. Why I was now alone. But I stayed there, just wondering if I had gone home and was actually asleep on my bed, or who I was or where home was. But I kept remembering that circle, and wondering where the people went.

Then I started to become more aware of my body. I realized that I was sitting, which was fitting when I thought of that circle. But everyone had still disappeared. My thoughts became stronger; I started discussing whether or not I was alone. Eventually I realized my eyes were closed, and that I could open them if I wanted to. It was still so silent around me. I thought I would have been able to sense breathing or moving or something around me if people were there. Finally I decided to open my eyes to see where all the people had gone. When I did, a circle of people sitting and breathing around a rock and some candles rushed back to me, along with an audible rush of feet rustling on carpet and the music that had been playing from a speaker to my left. I was shocked that everyone was there. I was so surprised that my jaw might have dropped. I had no reason to believe that anyone was with me or that I even existed very much until I opened my eyes.

Usually when I come out of sleep or a meditative state like that I’m bummed and wish I could go back. But I felt very content, pleased to be back, but happy to have been there. I didn’t think much of it, like “!??! That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced!” or anything like that. Instead I just felt good, wondered if it would be hard to get back to that. I was tired though. Not as sleepy anymore, but I felt like staring at the rock and candles for a long time. Eventually everyone came out of whatever they were doing and the lead guy started talking. Some of us shared our experiences, and he decided not to try to get into anything again, especially because of me. He said it could be too tiring.

And in the places you go you’ll see the place where you’re from, but in the faces you meet you’ll see the place where you’ll die, and on the day that you die you’ll see the people you met, and in the faces you see you’ll see just who you’ve been.

I had dropped into an emptiness that felt like death. Complete emptiness. And it was wonderful. I didn’t miss anyone, I didn’t feel alone, I didn’t feel anything at all. I didn’t remember who I was or where I had been, so I had no reason to feel sadness or happiness. That whole no light without darkness thing, no happiness without sadness? Well here, there was not light, no happiness, and thus no dark, no sadness. Just pure existence. If death is anything like that, and I think it could be, I am no longer afraid.

Girls and Bikes.

2010-05-23T01:01:00.003-06:00

I like bikes. And I like when women ride bikes. I think there should be more of us. So does my friend Esther. So she made this website, Salty Spokes, where all sorts of women in the Salt Lake area can come together and talk and plan rides and share ideas. So if you are a woman, or even a man, and like bikes, or even think bikes are okay but haven't touched one since you were ten years old, check the site out.

And to all you ladies out there. Listen up. If you wish you rode a bike but are afraid or think it's a bad idea for any reason, talk to me. Seriously. If one tiny part of your heart wants to ride a bike to the store, to a friends' house down the street, only on the weekends, or everyday to school or work, tell me. It doesn't matter where you live, how out of shape you are, or how afraid of the streets you might be. I'll help you. It's easy. And it makes you sooooooo freeeeee! In more than ten ways. I'll write about them later, I'm sure. But really, please please please talk to me. I wish I had had a lady to talk to a couple years ago when I bought my first bike. It was probably one of the worst bikes I could have bought. I had no idea what I was doing. But it got me riding. And all of a sudden I could go anywhere and do anything. So let me know. This doesn't mean you have to get the clipclop shoes and wear spandex and ride up canyons with me. I don't even like hills. It doesn't mean you have to ride a bright pink brakeless fixie around town. I love brakes. It doesn't mean you have to know what all the little parts of a bike do. I don't. Just ride.

Speaking of riding, tomorrow is a perfect time! Sundae Shuffle! Any and all ladies around town meet at Gallivan Plaza at 5 PM and we stroll around town on our bikes and stop somewhere nice to eat some treats, this time provided by me :) Everyone is welcome! Tell your friends and don't be afraid to show up by yourself. Everyone is nice in Utah, remember? See you tomorrow!

That's all for now. More to come later on women and freedom and everything in-between. (I love that "in-between" has a hyphen (sometimes). It's like a visual onomatopoeia. Or something.)

Architecture school

2010-04-30T20:34:00.000-06:00

Today was one of the most stressful days of my life. I am afraid of failure. But failure doesn't mean an F in a course, it means not being perfect. Which is a pretty high standard. But without fail I try. While typing this my blinks are every 1 or 2 seconds and are slower and heavier than normal. I have only slept 5 hours in the last 60 hours. Architecture school really, really sucks sometimes. I almost cried today, multiple times, had to blink back tears and everything and hope that no one talked to me while I was trying to control the back of my throat from wavering. I think my mother would be proud of me for how sane I stayed, given my perfectionism. I have been in the architecture building for the last 32 hours except for a two hour break (an evening at Rice Eccles stadium- I, along with a bunch of other students across campus, was sworn into the general assembly and senate of the ASUU. I'm Architecture and Planning Assembly.)

My tongue has 4 cancers on it, my eyes are red and dry, my lower back is throbbing and my leg muscles feel like they have contracted at least an inch in the last day. When my sleep gets off schedule so does my eating. I haven't had anything good in my body for too many days. Mostly just cheez-its, apple jacks, quaker mini rice things, cinnamon toasters, wendys, papa johns (twice this week? can't remember, all the days blur), sour gummy worms. Oh, this morning my old professor Toni gave me a bagel. There's something good (sorta). My stomach is so confused, for all it knows I'm dying. I haven't been hungry much in the last few days, my stomach is just in a constant knot. But eating is fun and distracting and compulsive when I'm stressed. I can't even list the things that nearly drove me insane (I'm not kidding. It was close, even ask Morgan and Lauren at school) in the last 24 hours, but they may or may not include ridiculous plotters that screwed up my six foot poster 4 times before it would finally print correctly an hour and forty five minutes after we were supposed to be pinned up upstairs for our final jury. It might also an impossible model that I thought I could pull together in a day but ended up taking around 35 hours (and counting). But there were some good times, like listening to really interesting podcasts and some excellent music. Also, presenting to my jury and getting really good reactions. It almost, almost makes up for the ridiculous amount of stress we endure before it.Not quite. Not for a few months will I realize how helpful this week has been for me. Okay, I can no longer keep my head up straight, it is nodding all over the place.

Goodnight,

Jessica

Tiny flexible apartment

2010-04-27T15:03:00.002-06:00

This is pretty cool: an architect in Hong Kong designed his walls to move and become 24 different rooms and arrangements. I can't even imagine how long this detailing took to plan.

DADA FACTORY

2010-04-22T13:45:00.000-06:00

Check this out! So cool!

and don't forget about this!

Perfectionism

2010-04-21T21:59:00.000-06:00

"I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.....Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground--you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move." -Anne Lamott

(thanks Julia)

I've been struggling the last month or so in school. I have really high expectations for myself. And no matter how many times my mom tells me it's okay to be average I really beat myself up when I get anything less than an A-. But that's not all, I can hardly make a single move on any studio projects because I'm paralyzed with the fear that it won't be the perfect decision. It's really, really annoying. I wish I was an art major. I could make anything I wanted without having to pass a jury. School is brutal right now. Only about 2 weeks more. Which is good and terrible. But so is taking the time to write this. Until next time.

jgil

Cool Memorial Bridge

2010-04-21T11:56:00.000-06:00

Coolest Bikes!

2010-04-13T17:39:00.002-06:00

Blog rebirth

2010-04-13T00:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged for quite a while. This does not mean that I haven't been thinking or doing very much, more the opposite. I'll try to document my thoughts and observations a little better starting now or soon, but here's a short little post. I read the news for a while every morning and thought this opinion article was going to be really interesting but it failed miserably in my opinion. The topic it flops over to is moderately interesting, but the topic it starts with is by far what deserves more discussion. Maybe I'll have to rewrite the second half of the article myself.

Also, I was up late last night finishing this paper for a group project on the New Museum in New York. I can't tell how my papers are anymore. I think they are 90% boring to anyone outside of the architecture world, but I enjoy writing about architecture. Sort of. It might be better than a freshman paper or something, but I don't think it is very great. I wish I could do some kind of creative piece with architecture, maybe I will over the summer. I'm hesitant to post this, but oh well. I can't be ashamed of everything.

I'm waking up early to catch a train to Ogden to pick up my phone from the UTA lost and found. Bummer. But funny. Plus I love the frontrunner and haven't ever taken it further than Bountiful. Also, I did my first New York Times crossword puzzle today. It was hard. And it's Monday. I think this is how I will study for the GRE.

Goodnight everything

Jessica

Bikes!

2010-03-11T14:30:00.002-07:00

COOL! Google maps added a directions by bicycle yesterday.

Los Angeles

2010-03-09T15:34:00.002-07:00

Lauren, Nate, Morgan, originally uploaded by Jessica Judy Gilmore.

Here are a few images from LA, mostly just things I like. I took a ton of photos (I either take a million (usually if I always have the camera out) on trips or zero), but here are just a few. Some have been photoshoped for class, as you can tell. There are 17.

Spoil

2010-03-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

On my desk is a piece of moldy sandwich in a dry roasted peanuts canister. Also an arrowhead water bottle on its side, a little bit of pink minutemaid lemonade in the deeper parts of the bottle. Two rotting fruits, an apple, and orange, not smelly but squishy and smaller than they used to be. Around me are several projects from the last six months, none of which I really love. Some I don't hate.

I'm stressed. I have a jury tomorrow and don't want to be unprepared. I have high expectations and hate letting myself down. I often do, but not fully, just little things that could have been better and I fixate on them. When stressed I clean my desk, my room, my inbox, cut my fingernails, my toenails, listen to music, think about the art I want to be making, the words I want to be writing. I'd rather do anything than what I'm supposed to be doing. I am afraid that it won't be good. It'll turn out crap. And it does when I put it off like this.

I just wanted to start a compost canister to bring home and dump into the little tupperware in the kitchen sink. I wanted to decrease the earth's awareness of me. But everything sits rotting, right in front of me.

I cry too much. Sad eyes are harder to look at than I thought. Maybe I am ten years behind. Sometimes I want to throw my bike through a window or off a cliff. But I don't like falling things. Anymore. So I wear a different pair of shoes for a while.

Sparklehorse's singer killed himself yesterday. Shot himself in the heart. I don't get it. What about me? He didn't know me yet, but we might have met five years later. Still makes me mad or confused. I don't know how to think about it. Will he ever be sorry?

But in the middle of the crushing deep stuff I zoom away and see the earth from space. I want to be an astronaut. And look, it doesn't even matter. It is all so small, so insignificant. Not even my compost canister can be seen from out there. Let alone this conversation.

So why does it hurt sometimes? Stupid things that will probably never change, no matter. "It makes me not want to do them anymore." Who is to blame? Usually each other. Wouldn't it all be so much easier if we only had ourselves to understand? I make so much sense, I swear. If only you were inside my head, you'd see what I see. I've heard solitary confinement is great. But I'm already insane enough.

It's true, I want to get away from this past, this present. Maybe I feel threatened, or just lack confidence. But sometimes I hate how connected this city is. From elementary through college. And it isn't fair to ask to leave people behind like I do. I shed more often than a snake. But sometimes it's hard. I can't be insecurity-less.

Sometimes I am sad. Usually at night when we are stuck in the darkness of our own heads. Next day, you get on your bike, I make myself a pancake. "Remember your old apartment?" Let's never forget it, okay? Even when I get scared.

"Typolution"

2010-02-28T17:48:00.001-07:00

(Thanks Megan)

2/22/2010

2010-02-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yellow plus orange equals red.
A flake of raisin bran diverted
my milk to the counter.
It is a sleepy morning. So sleepy
that it is afternoon.
I dreamed of affairs,woke
when I couldn't read the ingredients
on a pizza box.

Luke Williams + Matteo = Love

2010-02-17T00:25:00.000-07:00

I am really looking forward to one of my (very few) best friends's (I learned recently that you can do s's as long as there isn't also an s in the word that you are plural-ing. So Jesus', Moses', but friends's) show this Thursday night at Kilby Court. I love love love Luke Williams and his music (best local ep I've ever heard downloadable here for free!), but the best news is he is playing a set of new songs (I've only heard one, it nearly made me cry. He's literally that good) then setting up as another band, Matteo, a new local promiser, which consists of him, Jordan Riley, Brinn Bagley Chipman, and Eric Stohl.They recently finished recording an ep which I believe will be available at the show (along with Luke's solo ep). Matteo is a really cool mix between American alternative folk and Chinese traditional folk music. They play with instruments that they brought here from China. So cool. It is going to be a really good show. And I think all who attend will leave feeling happier and more satisfied than they have felt for a long time. See you there? Cool.

Dancing with bricks

2010-02-17T00:09:00.000-07:00

I'm at school working on a tedious foam core model (people dis foam core, cardboard, and hot glue around here, so I try to use them all as much as possible to show that they can look really nice) at 1/4" scale (which is pretty big) and listening to my ipod (with k.nathan's headphone, mine broke a few weeks ago and I have yet to buy new ones) on shuffle. A song from Coldplay's Viva la Vida album (which many people seem to hate on, but I still think it is a beautiful album) came on. I needed a break (my bones start to hurt sitting in architecture student positions so much) so I went outside and danced between the art and architecture building. I've only ever spent time out there during the day and never in a meditative way. It was really, really cool. The two buildings kind of protect the space, the walkways connecting them basically box it in, but the sky above still pulls the space up and up. It's beautiful. I danced around on the concrete benches and walls and danced to the buildings and to the sky and to the bricks. I danced and danced and I got a side ache. Then the song ended and a song by Iron and Wine came on (from The Shepperd's Dog) and I smiled and went back inside. And now My Body Is A Cage (Arcade Fire) is playing and I'm happy. Music is good. Dancing is good.