This is yet another picture from out in the middle of Africa. The village we are in is called Chikanda. The city it's nearest to is called Dedza which is about 15k away. It's a short bicycle ride in the dry season, a near impossible ride in the wet season. Dedza is a city in the southern part of Malawi, right where Zambia and Mozambique border on Malawi. In fact you can see Mozambique in this picutre. (The people who obviously aren't Malawian are other Peace Corps volunteers.) 

This is an old picture from the apple orchard last fall. That's a friend of mine. She thinks that she looks like a koala in that coat, but really people, it's Minnesota and at some point we sacrifice fashion for warmth. 

I just have to get this out...

Ok, so I have a roommate at home. My roommate has been seeing this guy for a week, and now he's staying over like every night.

Laying aside any and all moral judgements that could be made, I don't want extra people staying here because it's another person to compete with when I want into the bathroom. This seriously annoys me.

It's not *as bad* on the weekends, although yesterday they woke me up much earlier than I would have liked, because it was the one day I could sleep in the whole week.

I can tell this is going to be a fun coversation to have with the roommate. Grr....

Playing on the computer

Not much to report here lately.

I've been playing on the computer a lot lately. I recently downloaded Firefox and fell in love with it almost instantly. I thought I'd give peace a chance and try other free browsers and see if I liked them better. I tried Opera tonight but uninstalled it rather quickly off my computer.

I really liked the skin that Opera has, but I didn't like the interface and the graphics. Go Firefox.

I also tried to download the blogger google toolbar for firefox but that didn't work so well, or at least it didn't have all of the buttons predicted. I'm kind of bummed about that and don't really know how to fix it. Although the one button that I wanted is on there, the highlight button.

If you've never used it, you can search something in google, click on a web page it gives you, and then click the highlight button. It will highlight your search terms each time they appear on the page so when you're looking for something random and obscure, it's easier to find on a text-heavy page.

Not much else to report here.
Later

My long absence

I have been long absent from the blog. Sorry about that. I didn't get any emails, so I'm sure no one was too sad with me away.

I've been super busy at work, which is not fun for me or my clients because I can't help them as much when I have 50 other people calling me.

I'm still waiting to hear about grad school. It'd be nice if I knew what was going on this year.

I have had so much to say lately and now it's just all gone... Nothing... I'm totally empty.

I'll have to stop here for now and write more as I think of it.

I have been in rare form lately

I think coming back from vacation has been rough on me because I have been a bit grumpy lately.

Really, I came home from FLORIDA and landed in a snow storm in MINNESOTA. Who can blame me?

Drinking with the Aunties, a sequel to Talking While Drunk

This happened last Wednesday actually, but it's such a good story that I'm going to tell as much of it as I can from memory.

I was down in Florida with the aunties and we were hanging out at the club's pool, the big one. It looks really nice. We ate around 10am, left the house and walked to the pool around 11am, and didn't start drinking until 4pm or so. By the way, all I ate was an English muffin.

I went over to the bar with one of my aunts and we ordered four long island iced teas (for the aunts) and a margarita for me. After waiting forever, the drinks were finally done and we went back to the pool to imbibe.

The aunts took one sip of their drinks and thought they were going to die, or possibly be too drunk to walk home. And then it came out that we didn't leave the guy a tip, because my aunt thought he took too long. So another couple of aunts went back to the bar and told the guy she came back "because we realized me cheap ass sister forgot to leave you a tip" and also could they have a couple more cups and some coke to mellow out the iced teas. Little did the aunt know that I was the one who paid and I am too young to be any of their sisters.

By this time I had finished drinking the margarita. I have a tendency to drink margaritas too fast, which is a habit I hope to correct one day. The report was that the bartender was out of the big cups you need to make the drinks so he put the same amount of liquor into a smaller cup with less coke, so it was basically five shots of alcohol and a sip of coke that he had given them.

So they all started pouring out the alcohol and adding more coke, and giving me the left overs of what they poured out. I was already happy from the first drink, so this was just ridiculous. One of the aunts had two drinks and said her teeth were numb. (Lightweight.)

The really fun part came when we had to walk home from the pool. I could almost sort of walk in a straight line. Then a friend from Minnesota called me. One of my aunts was asking if I could walk and talk on the phone at the same time. I almost sort of could.

The second I got in the door I called her. It was lucky that this particular friend called, because she has been known to play drink and dial with me, so I really felt that she owed me. Also she was about to go to Guatemala and I'm watering her plants for her now. So she gave me the advice of put bread in your stomach.

Because I was embarrassed that I was drunk with the aunties I wanted to sober up as soon as possible. So I went and found pretzels. I went out to the pool which all the aunties were in to eat the pretzels. They all kept swimming up to me with their mouths open so I could *hand feed* them pretzels. I was really starting to sober up but I thought at the time I was just getting more drunk.

Palm Trees are the best trees ever

I'm in Florida. It's supposed to snow in Minnesota.
I love palm trees. That's all I'm sayin...

A Very Personal Decision

A friend was telling me about a housing program in New York City, possibly called Pathways. I'm not sure. Anyways, the program targets homeless adults who have a mental illness and usually some sort of CD issue as well.

The program provides housing and services to these individuals but does not have any requirements for individuals to stay in housing. The program doesn't even require tenants to stop using alcohol or drugs.

I know it sounds crazy, but seriously. It's like the most successful and also one of the most cost efficient programs there is. It sounds great to me for two reasons.

First, choosing to stop using alcohol or drugs is a very personal decision. No one else, not a housing program or church or even family, can use a stick and carrot that makes someone want to stop. When to stop is a unique decision and only the person can make it. This program seems to embrace the "everyone has their own timing, everyone has their own answers" philosophy which I think is very valuable.

Second, the program also seems to be based on the idea that there is value in helping people. There's value in helping people who can't participate in society in regular ways like holding a job or being sober through the day. The value of helping someone isn't what they can achieve with the help. The value of helping someone with an MI/CD issue isn't seeing them sober and in recovery. The value of helping someone who is unemployed isn't seeing them get a job. The value of helping someone, anyone, is helping them.

It's a tough thing to get your head around. The value of doing the job isn't the results, it is the job. (Possibly this is easier for process people to grasp, but again, maybe I'm just really different.) Once you can get your head around that philosophy, everything is much more successful because it changes your definition of success and achievement.

Revisiting the "Why Be Less?" Idea

I have been thinking the past few days about how strange my life really is. I can usually tell that my life is strange in other people's reaction to the choices I've made.

Really, I have made a few unorthodox choices, and it's usually because I value a different reward that most people do. I'm in AmeriCorps right now, so I obviously don't value money all that much. The second year of AmeriCorps is changing that view right now. But still, most people have a strange reaction to working 40 hours per week for sub minimum wage.

I am trying to think of the other things I've done that get a strange reaction. Studying bats, but that's for a whole different reason I think.

Anyways, the more I talk about my experiences the clearer it becomes that most people have different values than me. I usually try to do what makes me smarter, what makes me feel better. I rarely opt for things that give me more money, make me look better, or make me popular. It's funny how ok I am with being different really.

Anyways, I was looking at Marianne Williamsons Quote of the Day blog, and she had a couple of nice quotes up, one for today and one for yesterday about that very idea. Not being less to fit in, being what you are supposed to be and not being scared to not fit in.

Your Bad Attitude is Killing Me

I was listening to someone I work with today complain that she made less money than some of her other colleagues. Then I asked her if she could take some appointments for me one week in February when I will be out of the office. She opened up her planner and the week was completely empty. Then she told me to go ahead and cancel the appointments because she didn't want to take the meetings.

This coworker is the only other person there is who could have done these meetings. It's fine that she doesn't want to do them, because in her words, she might have other appointments by then. These are my appointments and my responsibility.

Then we were talking about a follow up support group and she was saying that no one was going to do anything, all we were going to hear was excuses and she didn't want to put the effort forth. "They will say this this and this, and nothing will happen. I've done this before." She doesn't want to put in the effort if the participants aren't going to put the same effort in.

And it was then that I realized, it's not her fault, she just has a horrible attitude. She's also a very outcome oriented person. I am totally not. I am almost 100% a process person. It's unusual in my field, any field really to be so process oriented. It's ok though because I wind up with a much better attitude. There's value in what I do. There's value in my putting effort into someone even if they don't return the effort. There's value in my putting effort into someone even if they don't ever achieve the outcome we were aiming for.

I work with this girl more than anyone else and it's been very interesting because we're almost total opposites. She's an extrovert and I am totally not. She's a feeler, I'm a thinker. She's very polychronic and a multitasker. I am the anal rententive one thing at a time type girl. She can feel attacked easily and doesn't often ask for help. I tend to have this self esteem that sings "I'm rubber, you're glue" all day and things don't bother me so much. She's very loose in how she finishes things and doesn't ever like to solidify details. I need to have all the details checked off so that I know I'm done. And she is an outcomes person while I am a process person.

There's value in the process and the whole process needs to happen. There's value in me taking part in the process even if the outcome is not my own. Another person's apathy toward the process or the goals doesn't devalue my own effort. My effort has value just existing.

So, I've been frustrated because I'm having trouble convincing others of that. How do you convince someone that there efforts were worthwhile when they help get someone a job and that person quits three weeks later? Their efforts were worthwhile. How do you show them that? The problem is that there's nothing there to touch, you just have to believe that what your doing is worthwhile. It's a very strange thing.

Why I Love Firefox

I go to the Cool Site of the Day most days. A couple days ago they had the sixteen best freeware programs listed on the cool site. One of them is a web browser called Firefox. They were hyping it up as this web browser that's supposed to be a lot better than internet explorer.

Well, I was bored at work today and thought I'd give it a shot. I am so happy that I did. The biggest problem I have with my computers at work is that they are old and take forever to load programs. The coolest thing about firefox is that you can have different web pages on tabs in one window so I don't have to open internet explorer fifty times to get something done.

I also downloaded some other programs. Spybot is one I've had before, Ad-aware from lavasoft is one I've read a lot about but you have to make sure you don't get a bum copy that actually is adware. I also installed this free virus scanner called AVG which is supposed to be really good.

On the downside of fire fox, some web pages can't be viewed correctly on it. Kelly's blog is one of them. Also, when editing in yahoo mail, you can only use the text editor and not the spiffy enhanced text editor with colors and sizes and things. Still I am much happier with firefox. It opens web pages much faster and has some other cool little options.

This is from a trip to the orchard which we took a long time ago. I just think it's a nice picture. 

Free Association

I keep seeing this on Kelly's blog, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's a free assocation game.

When I see... I think.....
Material World Gold
Satin sheets Moody Blues
Blizzard Minnesota
Real estate Land
Dress up Shoes
Wesley Crusher
Robber Dressed in black
Saliva Band
Slave Black
Shift Car

Running for Political Office

I was just thinking, in my car driving some where today... Yes, I work hard... Anyways, I was thinking that at some point in my life, I imagine when I'm old and looking for one final career move, that I would like to run for public office.

I was just thinking that this blog could come back at that point to bite me in the ass, because I basically say whatever I want on here. And I have said some pretty inflammatory things. (See, "killing is not ok, even when the government tells you to.")

I think that when my generation and especially the one after me starts running for public office we're going to start to see some of these blog scandals of things people wrote when they were 23 and too stupid to know any better.

Rough Drafts

It's been really fun lately to go back and look at some of my old blogs. I feel like everything here I write is a rough draft. As I read what I've written, I find myself editing things in my head, crossing things out, moving things around in each paragraph to make it sound better.

I've been able to write down my thoughts and see them in a way I didn't expect. I'm thinking about starting up a second blog, which would be revised writings from the a4bats blog, which is seeming to be a train of conscience's blog for now. Everything thing I think just gets put down into words, consequences be damned.

Really, no one knows who I am anyways, which is the good part of all this. More on if I do start a second blog, or a third. Everything I write here is like my internal thoughts about God and spirituality, I've also been thinking of having a blog that reads more like a journal of what I did today. More train of consciousness thoughts...

Talking While Drunk

I went out with my friend Kelly tonight after work. Kelly had a mudslide and I had two margarittas. The thing about margarittas are that I drink them faster than is probably advisable, so I get more intoxicated than I really should from only two, but whatever.

Kelly and I got to talking about religion. It's a common topic we wind up talking up. We were brought up in totally different backgrounds. Me, almost no church at all, and Kelly still goes to church every Sunday and works in youth ministry. So we were talking about God, and religion, and gay people and sex before marriage, and all kinds of things that I don't bother to bring up with her while I'm sober.

The thing about Kelly and I is that I realize she believes things that I don't. I'm ok with that really. She realizes I believe things she doesn't, and she's ok with it too. She also said something tonight that really made me think. Kelly said that because she has some conservative ideas, people don't tell her things because they expect her to be judgmental. Which I guess I can see. I don't talk about friends of mine who are gay or lesbians around her. But she's really not judgmental, which she pointed out and I can totally see.

So thanks for pointing out the obvious. Sometimes you need alcohol to loosen your tongues because some important things get said. The biggest thing with Kelly and I is that we trust each other when we're talking and respect each others view points so we really learn something when we're intoxicated. So thank you to my friends tequila and the mud slide.

The Plight of the Sick

I have been sick for the past couple of days. It's been quite unpleasant really.

On Monday, when I started getting sick, I thought it was just my reproductive system trying to kill me as it does once a month. Normally I get really bad cramps and really bad migraines, but Monday I felt really really bad.

Tuesday I had about eight appointments that I didn't want to cancel. I was all dressed and heading out the door when I realized that was a bad idea. I didn't have a thermometer at that time to tell me how high my fever was, but later that day medicine brought it down to 100 which is still really high for me. Normally I'm about 97 degrees. So, into bed I went. I only came out of bed to go buy medicine and stop by Blockbuster for movies.

Wednesday, that's today, I called in sick again. I had fewer appointments but felt worse about canceling them because I wasn't sure how technically sick I was. I think I did legitimately still have a fever most of the day. I took me temperature a couple of times and it was above 99, which again, still pretty high for me.

Today I wasn't feeling as bad though, so I called the U of M School of Social Work and talked to their field placement lady who was very nice. I also got back on the compute which I hadn't done Monday or Tuesday, perhaps a record for me.

I had time to read Marianne Williamson's blog, which I always do. I tend to like what she has to say. We seem to be of similar minds. This week, in honor of Martin Luther King day, she had a quote from him. It was about how religion does have an obligation to push for social change. It's interesting that I have no problem when Dr. King invokes religion in the civil rights movement, and I have no problem when Gandhi did it in India. I guess I only have a problem with people who I disagree with invoking religion.

I think the difference is, Dr. King, and Gandhi and scores of others have used religion as an argument to treat people better. It upsets me when I see people use religion as an excuse to treat people worse. Religion is not an excuse to ostracize gays and lesbians, it's not an excuse to enslave women, and it's not an excuse to bomb abortion clinics.

One of the biggest things I remember from traveling around the world was the number of men in the market places of some countries. Women had to stay home all day. Sometimes they even had to cover their faces and stay home all day. There was no freedom of movement. No freedom to go out and buy bread. That's wild.

The bombing abortion clinics, that just goes right along with the death penalty. Killing people doesn't help, it doesn't heal the pain, it doesn't restore the victim. Killing people is an expression of hatred and anger. Sometimes, it's scarier to forgive. It's scarier to let ourselves be that weak, and feel that much pain. It's a much more permanent thing, and feels much better in the long run. Once someone has been put to death, say in the electric chair, they're dead. The victim is still gone. The family is still in pain. Forgiving someone must be the scariest thing anyone has ever done. It's no wonder why so few people actually get around to it. It's hard to see the value in an process with so much pain and sadness. But value there is.

And now we come to my favorite, why God hates gay people, or not. What an awful thing. It's the only form of discrimination that is still legalized in this country. Probably not the only form, but I think it will be the next to go. After that will probably be the stigma around released convicts, but that's a whole other thing. It's interesting that while some states are pushing to recognize some for of gay union, other states are pushing equally hard to outlaw it with amendments. Knee jerk reaction, I think.

It must be hard to be so close minded, not to see the value in having a diverse population in your state. There's value in making sure everyone is welcome, there's value in making sure everyone is equal and there's value in loving everyone.

These are the things I have had time to contemplate during my two sick days.

The idea of letting go

I've been toying a lot lately with the idea of letting go, and the idea of finding god, and getting to know that part of me. It's a very strange concept. I wasn't really raised in a church or a particular faith, but my Mom taught me that God is in everyone. My Dad taught me that everyone is perfect, most people just don't know it yet.

I've been thinking about meditating, and starting to do that. I even downloaded a couple of guided meditations. It's a step, a little piece of the process I guess.

I've also been reading more about what people think of the war in Iraq, and all of that. It's such a horrible thing, but it's so hard to convince anyone who doesn't already believe that it's horrible. It's killing people. It's not about freeing people, it's just changing what dictator they are under. It's not about democracy if guns and tanks are rolling down the strets on election day. And yet, it's not about sticking it to President Bush either to make him say he was wrong or that he screwed up. That's another thing we have to let go of or nothing will ever get done.

Letting go, forgiving everything, is such an important process. It's in a lot of religions, asking forgiveness from people before asking forgiveness from God. Which is harder really? Letting go of the things that have been done to us in the past, letting go of the pain we have experienced. It's all an illusion anyway.

When my Dad meditates, he starts by blessing himself, and Mom and me, and everyone he sees every day, and everyone he sees once in a while, and everyone he has ever seen, and so the circle grows. The last blessing is for all the sentient beings alive. As the circle grows, at some point, people like George W Bush, and Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden are included. What an idea. Everyone is perfect, most of them just haven't been able to see that yet. They just haven't been able to let go so far.

I'm only slightly loosing my mind...

I am only slightly loosing my mind because I am the only one in the house who is able to take the trash out. I'm used to that. It's been that way for quite some time.

But now people seem to be developing a new deficiency in putting away clean dishes. I did dishes, and like a lot of dishes, Monday night. Tonight is Wednesday, and there they were waiting for me to put them away.

Seriously? That only slightly drives me up a wall.