“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”
– Juliet Ashton (12)

Not sure where to start. I just wrote a ton of stuff and realized that it was a mess. I think there were a few things that I really wanted to just make sense of. I don’t know if this gets read by someone somewhere. This is just the best therapy I got; but I kind of understand why people do this privately. I have been meaning to actually do this privately, since this is my favorite way to write for some reason. I think that will need to change soon — when I can figure out how to make that change I will probably find more neutral things to write about here. Maybe I’ll password it so I can just have friends who’d like to see it read it.

It’s odd . . . I have ever since I was young been completely open about myself. I never even considered that there may have been anything to feel embarassed about. But after several periods of just not feeling productive, I keep thinking that maybe there’s just a flaw in me that keeps me back. I tend to blame my family for a lot of it; and I feel at times both relieved and guilty for feeling that way. How can doing anything be possible when every action brings about a complicated result?

Sometimes when I am confused, I try to reel it back to things that I may have learned that I ended up questioning. I think that my initial reactions were to absolutely trust church pastors to the point where my parents disagreeing with the pastors ended up in me disagreeing with my parents. Then when all the pastors I had ever trusted had flaws that were to some extent unforgivable (i.e., they involved some deep-seated problem that nestled somewhere between egoism and myopia, which meant impossible to have a genuine relationship with — the only relationship I was left with was of subservience), I thought maybe my parents might be right enough after all, and maybe I could have a good relationship with them. Sometimes that gets better, but in reality I don’t think that it can ever be a good relationship and I seem to only be able to have a relatively positive one with one person, my mom. Nevertheless, it’s sub-ideal. I think it’s not her fault — I think it’s just the mess that we all have to live with. I don’t know how we got here — I don’t know how I have even remotely escape . . . if I have.

So now with Ian, whom I love; many things that he understands about the world shed so much light for me. He’s like the sun, bright, hot, and strong. Yet he’s like the one strong support under me. Because of him I have been able to go on, I have made real friends, I think. It’s not the ideal all the time — sometimes I think I should expect more from friends, but since I don’t have an idea of a “Perfect Friend,” I can’t impose any sort of ideal on anyone else. We’re here as long as we are, with all that we have and I can’t expect any more from myself because I just don’t have an ideal.

One thing Ian does better than me is happiness, and he does it well. Even if I were happy, I would be unsatisfied with it. I have inherited this from my family. His happiness is attractive, magnetic, electric. We have similar flaws, but people see mine more clearer because I have this perpetual frustration, self-consciousness, dissatisfaction, perfectionism. I want to outgrow it. I want to change it. I have learned in the course of my life that I can change anything . . . however, I don’t want to go in directions that I’ll need to change again — and hasn’t that been the problem that I can never find any contentment so I try to change it? But this could really make a difference in how I feel from day-to-day.

After I graduated I felt dead inside. I had a lot of things that I wanted but I was so sick of trying. Trying so hard for 6 years; the consummate burnout. I wanted everyone to leave me alone — including NAU’s administration (still screwing with my degree). Now I feel soft, like I’m okay, but I just don’t want anymore challenges. I am sad — I don’t know what this says about me. I guess I am out of faith. Not just faith in God, but faith in possibility. I don’t understand how years of frustration can lead to an emotional crisis.

I just need to get out of the world for a while. That’s like the best idea I have had in a long time . . .

So I’m restless. I need to do something. Anything. Now . . .

This isn’t how I planned it. But then again, I haven’t taken the time to implement any part of my plan — uh, at least the most recent version. I should be volunteering for something, somewhere. But I don’t really know what that means. I don’t know how much time I have before I need to stop and say it’s time to grow up.

I’d like to settle down. Find a career. Make a little money and spend it. Yet, while I think I would be okay with that now, I’m not so sure I would find the kind of career yet that would fill me. I worry that I am doomed to be poor; and yet my heart calls me — and I don’t know what I really want. I hate being the person who says the grass is always greener, but had it not been for screwing up so badly, I would have loved school. Now, I am just not so sure what to do.

So I can’t seem to settle on anything that doesn’t have a million drawbacks. But here are the ideas so far . . .

1) I sign on with Americorps intending to complete two years of service and hopefully pay off at least one set of loans (from my Grand Canyon University days).

2) Join Peace Corps — doesn’t have the education award option but there exists the possibility of earning a Master’s degree while I serve. Or at least getting a big discount towards it when I come back. Problem is Peace Corps doesn’t go to Korea — not a problem for Korea, I’m sure, but I feel like I’m getting old to not be invested in Korea

3) Teach English in Korea — I won’t get the best jobs because I don’t have any teaching experience or certification. But I might make make enough with the provision of an apartment to actually pay off my loans while I work and save some money afterward. It might be just as good as Americorps or Peace Corps, but may not look as good on the resume

4) Prepare for Grad School — would have to do this anyway if I was doing a Peace Corps/Master’s program option, but preparing for the GRE — still involves needing a job — maybe Americorps while I work on GRE? Maybe teaching in Korea?
Graduate Programs I’m interested in:
Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii in Manoa
International Political Economy somewhere else

5) Foreign Service — Yes the Foreign Service exam. That will be a whole other animal too, which I will need to eat and survive until I pass. But I kind of would like the opportunity to work here in the U.S. too.

Just some thoughts . . . but it’s not over yet . . .

So today was my last day, and it happened to be with the Monday crew. I arrived early, and yet I didn’t feel the ambivalence that usually permeated my days with this group. We were given an enormous pile of beets to prepare. While the others spent time slicing the beets, I tore the bulbous roots from the greens so that the group would have a pile of beets to chop. Then I spent time sorting through the beet greens. This was not the most pleasant of tasks, especially when I would get the algae-like, pickled types of rotted greens. This took the whole two-hour shift and the box of beet greens seemed endless. Nearly at the the end of my shift, Bill hands me another box of greens, seemingly full of beautiful rainbow chard. Yet this was not to be — there were only about two or three bunches of rainbow chard. The rest of the box mostly held beet caps and their greens. But these greens were in questionable condition, and I made relatively quick work of much of it.

Meanwhile, Bill prepares a bunch of Red Lobster leftovers, and soon I am called away from work to eat lunch. At lunch, I am asked about what I am studying, so I mention Raj Patel’s theory, how there are companies who stand between producers and consumers, and how these companies make a fortune while screwing the people at both ends. I talk about how there seemed to be reluctance on those who came to the Food Center to eat the food with likely the highest vitamin content and how that might be a predilection of those who are in poverty to not be accustomed to eating better food. Dick speaks up then and says that he notices that, but he also notices that they can only get to these people at the one or two meals they serve. So it is difficult to try to engender tastes with one to two meals a week, but it is better than nothing. Unfortunately, I was pulled away from this conversation just as it got interesting, but after openly questioning capitalism in the production of food, I was surprised to not experience an openly visceral response — though I was expecting one. I would probably need more time to see where my comments would have led but I was encouraged in any case to see a willingness to discuss this in the group.

I spent only one hour at the Food Center today, though I usually am supposed to work two-hour shifts. I met up with some graduate students in Communication theory while working. Three other girls and I worked on preparing food, but I worked apart from them on strawberries — undoubtedly the fruit selection for tonight’s meal. I was given what seemed an endless supply of strawberries in containers. Some of them were moldy, some of them were not too bad. I was to find the best ones and cap them, leaving them whole. Bill decided that he would probably pour some kind of yogurt over them.

While chatting today, I learned that the three other girls had recently been to a bachelorette party and had played a scavenging hunt game around town retrieving various items. I accidentally hit one of the girl with a strawberry since two of the girls stood alongside the compost bin. I apologized, but I wasn’t so sure that I was forgiven. Nevertheless, as the hour progressed, it went from being unusual to pleasant, and I had actually wished I had had time to do a two-hour shift with them.

I volunteered again with the Latter-Day Saints missionaries, but they were a lot more toned-down. I think realizing that I would not be their next convert helped. Also, Carrie wasn’t expecting me; I was early, and she gave me the task of making salads.

I don’t like making salads because the lettuce is always either rotted or pretty okay. We also get this pre-bagged iceberg lettuce. I was told by Kevin that Bill ignores the iceberg lettuce until Carrie gets it and its bad. There’s a slight smell to the lettuce. But I remember another day when the lettuce smell was so bad I could smell it across the counter. I split one large bag of iceberg lettuce across four bins, but then I try as much as possible to use the pre-bagged mesculun and butter lettuce mixes, because they tend to be vitamin-filled and fresher than the pre-sealed iceberg lettuce. I think the iceberg lettuce must have come from Taco Bell or something. I also get a large bags of cubed tomatoes that are a touch sour. I split one bag of that across four bins and the tomatoes quickly overwhelm the lettuce. I toss a handful of bell peppers and suggest that Carrie be generous with her salad dressing.

So I took a long break. Not intentionally, but between chiropractor’s appointments (I had gotten into a car accident trying to find Kevin the day his house burned down and his cell phone shut off — same day — no seriously) and papers, I felt unable to volunteer. Also, I was a little discouraged thinking the Monday morning crew didn’t like me so much, and I was scheduled to work Mondays mostly. The Food Center was sort of weird. I would email Helen to tell her I couldn’t make it in and ask if could come in another day. Helen wouldn’t really respond; so I would intend to go on different days and fail to make it, but felt like no one really cared anyway.

So I started to realize how desperate I was to make up hours and really was trying to fit in a day to go. I received a jump start through my church, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Flagstaff. I’m on their email list; apparently, a UU volunteer coordinator was looking for people to help with the serving line at the Food Center. I thought it was ironically convenient for me, since the Food Center really wasn’t opening up serving line jobs to walk-in volunteers so much. So I got to experience what it was like to serve the food rather than cook it.

I show up after a chiropractor’s appointment. I ran home to get my paperwork, and I knew I would be an hour early, but I thought that the inertia of waiting to get started would discourage me from actually leaving later. So I get to the Food Center around 3 p.m. — serving starts at 4 p.m. Apparently, the Food Center now gets daily shipments of Albertson’s fresh bread loaves; also, it is the job of the serving crew to come in and slice up the loaves to be served. So for about 45 minutes, I spend trying to cut soft, just-baked bread into one-inch slices. When my cohorts showed up, I had gone through about four of them. After filling to large silver pans with bread slices, we don our aprons. The doors literally open as we take our positions. I am behind the main course, ham and beans, and the vegetable side, green beans. As the line progressed, while the two ladies (all who volunteered were women) beside me asked if the people in the line wanted this or that, I tried to avoid asking. I felt asking would slow the line down. But after being stopped in trying to serve green beans several times, I decided to start asking, because it would make the food last longer if people refused. This was a genuine concern of Carrie’s, who was the head cook today.

The ham-and-beans were popular about 3 or 4 of the “customers” returned about 3 or 4 times each. This surprised me, because having had the food before, I know how quickly the food fills one up. I might go back once — but usually I’m taking quite a while to finish the food because there is so much of it at once. One thing that surprised me was the frequency of people rejecting green beans. We later ran out of the green beans, but then we started serving steamed zucchini with bell peppers. It was so beautiful and looked so good, I could have sat there and ate it all while serving it. Yet it seemed only half the people agreed to take it. They were, however, much more willing to take the fresh salad, which debatably had more raw nutrients in it.

The unusual thing about the food center is the serving of high-carbohydrate containing desserts, like cakes and pies. Since it is part of a complete meal, these desserts are probably less harmful than otherwise, but it also seems to be backwards from the policy of trying to provide nutrition to poor people. Sugar is one of the cheapest and easiest substances to obtain; and it seems that stores are dumping quite a bit of it. Another thing that seemed odd was the practice of certain people at Lent to make cupcakes in order to deny themselves the cupcakes, and then give it to a shelter serving food to poor people. It seemed like an ill thought out sacrifice. Nevertheless, I was pleased when the UU coordinator stole me a small piece of white cake with whipped cream frosting — the first piece of such cake I had had in ages. It was heavenly.

I’m just feeling wistful, longing, needing some other part of the universe to break off and put me at peace. I wish I could just stop the world. I feel like a professor might be upset at me for not going to her class. But I just can’t care. I’m worried about what it says about my future to be all tied up like this. But I have been here before, and somehow I survived. I just can’t care anymore. I just want to feel good and not unhappy or freaked out anymore. I have just been searching for the equilibrium between my work habits and the world around me. I don’t know if I’ll ever find it. I’m so unhappy about this. I don’t know if I should just start over again from scratch — but there’s an emptiness I don’t want again. I just don’t want. That’s all can feel. The negative of want. I don’t want anymore; I just want to find some peace with whatever is left of my life. I don’t even know if my life is all that bad, I just want it to stop. I used to be young, and I used to feel good. Now I’m just tired all the time and unable to sleep — with a back that’s out of whack and no time to really set things right. I wish that I could be happy as an academic — but I just can’t get some parts of me to work.

I just want to remember what it’s like with Ian lying close to me as we lazily fall asleep together. No outbursts, no regrets, no wondering if I could have spent another 5 hours on a paper after having spent 10 hours working on it before. I don’t know if it’s enough, and I’m not young enough to impress anyone. I wish that I knew more of what the world looks like behind people’s closed doors. The absolute fear that I don’t know enough sometimes just drives me nuts. I hate feeling like I’m the only person in the world who is me. This doesn’t have to be my life — but it’s my life for a couple more weeks yet. Oh, help . . .

Gutschow begins her discussion about Buddhism in Zangskar, by describing the founder of Zangskar’s largest nunnery, Yeshe. Yeshe made a pilgrimage to visit the abbot of the Ganden monastery, the third-highest ecclesiastic of the time and the head of the Dalai Lama’s sect. She also point out the honor that Yeshe received when his daughter became a nun, proffering her the honor of being led into the village mounted as a bride would be displayed. They had a particular religious status conferred by the status of their abbot and founded the first full-fledged community of nuns in Karsha village.

Gutschow takes this time to remark on how the book is about this particular nunnery and its survival. She also remarks on how interesting that women make the choice to become nuns, even though they cannot escape their sexuality and gender. The choice to be celibate “can only take place in a social context,” she argues. The community of nuns offers an alternative to society.

Gutschow then explains how Zangskar was assimilated into the territories of Jammu and Kashmir following partition. The next section describes the political ramifications of being Buddhist in this area of the world. Buddhists tend to resist the political motivations to enforce any moral policies against traditional systems of organization. Then she discusses the value of monasticism in an increasingly capitalist society. Becoming a nun gives opportunity to see the world outside the village, but this same advantage is decreasing for monks, who would rather consider the increasing availability of jobs and having families. Further analysis discusses education levels, mortality rates, and the choices for medical treatment, including that performed by monks through Tantra. A description of the landscape of Zangskar follows along with a discussion of village sociological systems, including a brief on how distribution of resources works. Then proceeds another discussion about farming and how such fruits are divided as well as what is provided by markets to ther region.

Gutschow proceeds to describe an actual political narrative regarding a nun who “stole” water. According to the agreement of the village, certain protocols must be carried out regarding when people could water their lands. An elderly nun who had spent most of the day herding sheep, had likely run out of time that day to water the fields and had taken water to water them at night. This was considered stealing by one official who had noticed it. He consults with the headman, and the headman, his assistant and the official all deem that indeed water had been “stolen.” The nun denied knowing about the protocol. The headman, of course, attempts to challenge a wealthy family who owns the temple that the nun maintains. The family claims no wrongdoing due to her lack of knowledge of the situation. Later on, young men in the village worked into a rabble demand a sheep for payment of the water. The nun refuses because she contends it is an excessive payment for a water infraction. The creeps decide to steal a sheep, which the family claims was supposed to not be slaughtered. They nevertheless slaughter the sheep, and the meat gets doled out to the village equally by the headman, who is actually upset about the situation. The family eventually bars the nuns from meeting. Gustchow insists that this was a struggle for the right to water as much as to worship. But for me it was unfortunate that the nuns lost their place of worship.

So I have this friend, who I really wouldn’t call a friend. I wanted to like her, and she did a lot of things for me; but I always have the feeling that when I am with her, I am holding a snake. I wanted to not believe it. I mean after a lifetime of judgmentalism, I just wanted to believe that people are people and they are just trying. All people make mistakes and no one is perfect. Except this person has always made me sad. I get the impression that she does things out of obligation and is all smiles and acts like my best friend, but she’s just not my friend. I can feel it. I feel hurt a little bit, knowing that people can still be nice to your face and wish they really weren’t with you. I suppose it doesn’t make her a bad person exactly . . .

I never really thought that I disliked her. Ian pointed out to me that why did I worry about her opinion when she didn’t like me, and I didn’t really like her. I had convinced myself that she was annoying, frustrating, self-centered, and just liked to flirt with guys. Some of them who were my friends — but even then, I have gotten so annoyed with them and burned out on school, that I don’t have the energy for those people who took her attentions seriously. She’s even like best friends with a person who thought nothing of being a bitch to me, even when I had but nothing but kind to the person. Now she’s kind of taken of the place of a close friend — not in my mind, but she has kind of moved into my old friend’s life. Granted it was one that my old friend had chosen to reject, but then this girl just decides to make a beeline for a guy I point out from a photograph, almost as soon as she gets off the plane. So yeah . . . I guess I don’t really like her; I was trying to convince myself that I liked her just not the stuff she does, but she does a lot of thing I don’t like. :-/

She just seems so scheming and I can’t put it out of my head. I sure my old friend doesn’t care, and her ex is thrilled to have this new girl as her replacement. Yet for me, I feel lost. I can’t even talk about my old friend without getting into trouble in social circles, since no one is supposed to know that she and he were engaged so as to preserve the “integrity” of this new found relationship. Can I just say ew? I mean what can I say? I’m not allowed to say anything.

I look at my friends from another country and I envy the social training that enables them to handle themselves. They wouldn’t react. They would just forget about it or stew on it with the patience of an ancient tortoise. I get irritated and all I can do is vocalize, write, just get it out somehow like a gerbil or something. But these friends would also be scandalized if they knew about the situation. So all I can do is gripe about it here — hoping that no one comes here and reads this. It doesn’t really seem like any one does anyway . . .

I am grateful to this girl for helping me. I just don’t really believe that she likes me. And it’s also really hard to have lost not only the connection with a former friend, but even the memories I have with her. All those things just have gotten erased — and my friend did magical things for me. But I know she had her drawbacks, but a sort of genuine honesty wasn’t one of her flaws. Granted, she wasn’t all honest — I think where she comes from people have to hide. But she was gold and I just wanted to bask in her light forever. I miss you, my friend. I hope we’ll have a chance to have a real friendship again; but if this is all I get, it was good while it lasted.