Boy oh boy and am I ever in a bloggy sort of mood.

So while I am at it, let me put down this thought.

Today Republicans blocked debate on financial reform. This toddler-esque behavior is apparently how they intend to participate in "governance" during the Obama administration. This infantile bullshit is a deliberate act to sabotage the core function of the great deliberative body of government. How thoughtful! How patriotic! How confident they must be in their policy positions if they find it necessary to completely torpedo the very conversation in which they might defend those positions.

It reminds me of the ten rules for debate I would always introduce when facilitating a class section in college.

Sidney Hooks ten rules for debate. Presented here in their entirety.

1. Nothing and no one is immune from criticism.

2. Everyone involved in a controversy has an intellectual responsibility to inform himself of the available facts.

3. Criticism should be directed first to policies, and against persons only when they are responsible for policies, and against their motives or purposes only when there is some independent evidence of their character.

4. Because certain words are legally permissible, they are not therefore morally permissible.

5. Before impugning an opponent’s motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments.

6. Do not treat an opponent of a policy as if he were therefore a personal enemy of the country or a concealed enemy of democracy.

7. Since a good cause may be defended by bad arguments, after answering the bad arguments for another’s position present positive evidence for your own.

8. Do not hesitate to admit lack of knowledge or to suspend judgment if evidence is not decisive either way.

9. Only in pure logic and mathematics, not in human affairs, can one demonstrate that something is strictly impossible. Because something is logically possible, it is not therefore probable. “It is not impossible” is a preface to an irrelevant statement about human affairs. The question is always one of the balance of probabilities. And the evidence for probabilities must include more than abstract possibilities.

10. The cardinal sin, when we are looking for truth of fact or wisdom of policy, is refusal to discuss, or action which blocks discussion.

I wish these were prominently displayed somewhere in each house of congress.

nicknames

Why do I always think of the best nicknames after the fact?

When I was a freshman at theatre design conservatory one of our assignments was to design a soup can label. I made a label that my design teacher loved. It was very sleek, very modern, and was for gazpacho. I did not think of the Razpacho play until long after I had turned in this project.

Why oh why did I only think of "Razputin" recently?

I should have considered this nickname sometime in the winter of 2007.

Behold, Rasputin.

And now Razputin. This photo was taken February 2007 after 4 months of not shaving.

Uncanny or what?

the axis of ambition and the axis of crazy.

News Brief: I've gotten approval to pursue a project in Moore Town, Portland Parish in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Moore Town is the major cultural/historical center of the Windward Maroons. There are some nifty articles online if you want to read more about the Windward Maroons, or the Jamaican Maroons in general. I will move in early May most likely but housing in the community still must be indentified. I visited Moore Town a few weeks ago and I absolutely loved it. Cannot wait to get out there and get into the swing.

I am working with the current batch of Peace Corps Trainees (they got here on March 18) to get trained in literacy training techniques because I would love to work with the two schools in Moore Town in addition to the environmental projects I want to pursue. This is pretty much the measure of things at the moment.

I really love spending time with trainees, learning their motivations, their histories, their ambitions. I am not sure exactly what rubrics Peace Corps applies to determine who gets invited to serve, but I am pretty sure that in addition to overall awesomeness (PCVs on the whole are a quality bunch) they look carefully to see how applicants fall on two scales or axes. This brings us to the title of this blog post.

So, I am increasingly convinced that to get into Peace Corps and to be happy in Peace Corps and to keep Peace Corps' faith in you, you must fall in some "sweet spot" along two crucial axes: The axis of ambition, and the axis of crazy. Let's discuss.

There is such a thing in Peace Corps as too much ambition. I would be very worried if I were interviewing someone for PC and this someone was convinced that given a plane ticket, a few months of training, and a mosquito net, they could substantially reduce the AIDS rate in Botswana. This person would be way high on the axis. Likewise, I would be pretty nervous about an applicant whose motivation seemed more driven by simple wanderlust than any motivation to serve. It is not unheard of for Vols to get pretty nihilistic and catatonic in Peace Corps. Ultimately on the axis of ambition you need to fall somewhere in the middle.

The axis of crazy is a little harder to think about. Really, you need to be kinda crazy just to fill out the application and get an interview in the first place. The application is long, the essays prompt are vague, and the pre-service medical instructs doctors to stick their fingers in your ass (note: I managed to dodge this bullet for pre-service medical but my number was up when I had to med-check to transfer). So it is already sort of a given that applicants are a little bit nuts, the point is that they cannot be too crazy. You need to be crazy enough to apply for a job without knowing what continent you might get sent to, let alone any real job description. You need to be crazy to willingly subject yourself to isolation, sickness, climatic extremes, and a life without coffee for 2+ years. But you cannot be so crazy that Peace Corps is worried you might turn into some Colonel Kurtz.

Keeping yourself sane and motivated once you get here of course is an entirely different story.

Enough for now.

Current time: 22:30

Current location: Port Royal

Current Temperature: Low 80s, presumably.

Current Music: The Pixies. The riff at the start of "Here Comes Your Man" just kills me every time. "Doolittle" is such an amazing album.

State of the Raz: sleepy, hopeful, excited for next steps.

good heavens

It has been the weirdest 24 hours.

Also, hi! Hello! Been awhile. Have a seat.

Ths short of it:

I am changing sites. Following the opening of the PRML Biodiversity Centre in late January, things took a turn for the worse at that site. This is one of those shitty adult situations where there is plenty of culpability and bad feelings to go round, but no one person is to blame. And even if there was clear cause to blame or assign guilt, no one involved had bad intentions.

Sometimes I wish life were more like comic books or Disney movies; clear villains, heroes out to defend the meek, and citizens who are generally charming even if they are also generally boring. But no. Life is not like that and sometimes shitty situations arise despite all parties involved being ernest and well-meaning.

I wonder if this is the innocence that is lost in childhood? I used to think that the loss of innocence meant the realization that ordinary people are sometimes guilty of extraordinary malice. Now I wonder if what is lost is not really innocence, but the false belief that all bad situations arise from a confrontation between a party who is guilty and a party who is innocent. In the adult world situations sometimes arise when two well intentioned people simply cannot be well intentioned together. Maybe childhood ends when you realize that negativity does not rely on malice, evil, or even incompetence for its genesis. Sometimes even objectives that are good can result in situations that are bad.

Sometimes I think I am a grown-up. Today I am not so sure.

Sorry for the abstract nature of this post. I'm sure I can fill you in on more details at some point, but certainly not in this forum. You can email me though! If you do email me, be sure to tell me a story in your email. You could just tell me about your day, or you could tell me another story.

Don't think you have any good stories? Bullshit. Come on! Tell a story! You are beautiful! You are interesting! Express yourself! Be free! fjdlkjdgbvkjnvbjf!!! See? Was that so hard?

The project I have been working on since coming to Jamaica opens to the public a week from Tuesday. I am so excited, but also frantically busy. It is a good feeling.
On a specimen collection dive on friday (coral mostly, but also some invertebrates) I saw a sea turtle. The turtle was maybe 20' deep and was hiding under a ledge in the reef. It was maybe 1 meter in diameter and I later was able to identify it as a green turtle. So gorgeous. Nature's penchant for color and pattern is best displayed in tropical ecosystems. Simply amazing. Peace Corps life can be trying at times, but moments like that make up for every frustration.

Book thoughts.

I just recently reread A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and I enjoyed it much more this time. I first read that book when in between my second and third years of college, and I really did not get it. But the book is really a book about the compromises to youth that Dave Eggers made on account of finding himself suddenly a parent. The context is so much clearer now. Strangely, the book is about Eggers' life between the ages of 21 and 27 and these ages are likewise the ages of my first and second readings. Now that I have experienced life post-college and now that 25 does not seem ancient (at 21 I could hardly imagine being 25) the experiences recounted in the book are so much more relatable. What is interesting is that they are not relatable because they are similar to my experiences, but because now I can see what Dave Eggers felt cheated out of. I was so focused on finishing college when I first read the book, that the thought of being post-college with a sibling sidekick just did not seem that weird. Now I can look back and say with full confidence that the past five years that I have treasured so much for the independence and self-definition they afforded me would be gone were I to find myself in Eggers' situation.

Currently rereading Tropic of Cancer. So good. This book I read only four years ago or so, but on this reading I appreciate it differently as well. I think that living abroad is part of this difference in perspective. One of the strange things about living overseas is that I am frequently surprised by who my friends are. It is easy to bond with other expats but sometimes I wonder to myself "would I really be friends with these people in any other situation?". I think Miller frequently asked himself the same thing living in Paris. Incidentally, this question is also at the heart of the film "The Breakfast Club". Not sure where I am going with this line of reasoning.

But what I am really enjoying about this reading of Tropic of Cancer is the historicality of the book. I take it for granted that Henry Miller was more prone to discussing matters of the flesh than most of his (or our) contemporaries. But what makes the book so delightful is to revel in the incongrouity between it and pretty much all other english language (or photographic) representations of life between the two world wars. Not counting pics of the depression era destitute, people looked so damn classy in 1932! And the Hays Production Code further adds to the sanitized view I have of this era. So Miller's work is this wonderful little time capsule that assures me that despite their clothes, and despite the cinematic representation of their time, people then (at least Miller and the people in his circle) were every bit as debaucherous as anything I can imagine now. I take comfort in this fact.

earthquake in haiti

The earthquake that has wreaked devastation upon Haiti was hardly felt in Jamaica.

I am fine.

I am not sure if I felt the earthquake or not. I was in the water up to my waist at the time, and had been in the water and off and on boats all day so I was sorta sea-leggy. I do know that I noticed waves but could not find a ship that kicked up the wake, I did not think much of it. There was a tsunami warning for the North side of the island (I am South side) but it expired pretty quickly.

That said, the situation is Haiti is really bad. Now is a good time to donate. I have not heard anything about whether Peace Corps Response (formerly Crisis Corps) will go and help with the reconstruction effort. Hopefully yes, but these things take time. If there is any way for PC Jamaica volunteers to work on this effort, I will definitely try to get there.

Otherwise. Work is going well. I am really busy and we open the biodiversity centre in less than two weeks. I am learning a lot about aquarium chemistry and am getting a lot better at managing the various tanks. Generally happy, generally productive.

I reread A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Currently rereading Tropic of Cancer. I will probably write a post on this experience as well.

To sum up
State of Haiti: Disaster.
State of Jamaica: No More Disastrous Than Usual.
State of Raz: Pretty happy. Definitely ready to go home and bathe.
State of Clothing: Trousers filthy. Keens smelling REALLY bad (what do I do about this? Any suggestions?)
Current Time: 17:35
Current Weather: Low 80's, slight southeasterly breeze.

reflective

I am just over 25% done with Peace Corps. I cannot believe it.

A plane crashed at the Kingston Airport last night, about 5 miles from my house. I heard nothing but woke up to quite a commotion in Port Royal this morning.

I also woke up in the middle of the night last night to what was quite possibly the most extraordinary symphony of dogs barking I have ever experienced. This all happened about 4hrs after the plane crash and might be related. There is really no way of knowing. I did not wake up because of the dogs barking (I woke up from a bad dream and was incredibly thirsty) but I noticed the dogs barking because it made it that much harder to fall asleep.

Work is going well, although can be frustrating at times. We keep on having mechanical problems getting the aquaria up and running and it takes a long time to fix stuff around here. Hopefully once the center is up and running I will be able to spend more time doing outreach and education and less time trying to get ornery saltwater pumps to work. The past three weeks have been really slow, with lots of people on leave and not a lot going on.

I miss Ghana pretty bad but it is hard to pinpoint what I miss. I also miss Seattle, but in a totally different way.

I think that when we miss something or someone we not only miss that person or that thing, but we also miss the self that they bring out in us. Having identity reified by familiarity is a blessing and a curse I suppose. There is great liberation to be found in changes of context, but this process can still be lonely and scary. It is true that no matter where you are you are always in your own company, but I think the Xhosa saying that that "people are people through other people" is incredibly powerful and incredibly true.

I am reminded of the famous admissions essay prompt for Amherst College that went "Sartre said, 'Hell is other people'; but Streisand sang, 'People who need people/Are the luckiest people in the world.' With whom do you agree and why? Don't be icky."

I love this prompt, but it is too binary and taken literally as an either/or option it misses the point. The balance between self-definition and existence of self through encounter is the key tension in the dynamics of identity. I doubt if there is a clean resolution or perfect balance. So maybe a key to happiness is finding beauty and peace in eternal struggles while also avoiding being icky?

Happy tidings of Yule, everyone.