Church, State, Christmas

This article in today's local paper, the Philippine Star, caught my eye. One, because its such a classic example of how unseparate church and state are here. Not that the film industry can at all claim to be part of the government but my hunch is that the type of censorship described in that article would not be permitted in the States given that thing we call a First Amendment. (Although I have to admit I'm not government/history/politics expert by any stretch so I'm probably toeing the line of informed discussion here who knows). Two, I'm really amused that something reported via text message is considered legitimate enough to be publishable.

Back in 2009, I wrote a little about the Catholic church's role in the Philippines. I mentioned the Reproductive Health bill. As it was mentioned in that article today ("RH Bill" - in the cartoon) I'm guessing it hasn't been passed. There are a lot of things I could comment on about this, but it's pretty standard liberal politics and I feel like it's enough to say "hey check this out."

And just now, I was google searching for the picture I have at the top of this post, and discovered another interesting article. Upon seeing the headline I thought it was going to be an article about something really absurd, but you know I think what the dude is saying is legitimate. I'm pretty ok with someone pointing out that Christmas has been taken over by consumerism. Except I don't think Santa is to blame for that.

Thinking about thoughts

When I originally created this blog, the idea was to create a space to share my adventuring with people I was leaving behind. Then I went dormant for a while (I guess that's not unexpected given that I was doing graduate level coursework). Now I'm back. I currently have two other blog posts waiting to be completed, and neither of them are about travel. I'm finding myself wanting to use this space for more diverse expression.

I've been reading a lot of other peoples' blogs lately, I want people to read mine. I have ideas and things I want to share.

So I'm all for expression - I think it's an important part of learning and growing - which in turn seems to be an important part of being a post-college 20-something - but expressing in the format of a public blog is something with which I struggle a bit more. How much do I feel comfortable putting out in this public space? Who is reading this? What can I say, without sharing too much? Does it even matter if I'm sharing thoughts with strangers if I don't know that I'm sharing thoughts with strangers? I don't think the information I'm sharing is putting me at risk for say, identity theft. But hopes, dreams, beliefs, ponderings - where does those fit in between the public and private spheres? I don't know.

Onward and forward

So I've been battling with another blog entry for most of this week, and as I continue to sort out what it is exactly that I'm trying to express (in that particular entry, I am delving into less familiar territory - deviating from my normal subject matter of travel) I thought I might give you all an update.

I'm currently digging through the corners of my apartment and sorting out all of my belongings (useful vs not useful; wanted vs not wanted; sentimental vs meaningless) because I'm off again in a week. I'll be at the airport, passport in hand, visas at the ready, dragging two huge duffel bags out of the country for an as of yet unknown period of time. Probably about a year.

My first stop in this next leg of my travels will be a return to the Philippines (it is the Christmas season after all - for my loyal followers you will should see a seasonal pattern here). However, I won't be there that long - this year, my immediate family has decided to escape the chaos of festivities in the PI for a remote beach vacation in Bali. Obviously I wasn't going to miss out on that. I pretty much have no idea what exactly I'm in for - all I know is that we've rented a vacation house in a less touristy area, so I'm sure I'll have more about that later.

But the main thing here (besides "blah blah I'm a jetsetter and like to flaunt my ability to spend holidays in tropical paradise) is that I am employed again! In South Korea. As an English teacher. Its all very silly. And it has been a ridiculously absurd process. But I'm excited. I really enjoyed Korea when I was there in September (despite the challenges of the extremely spicy food) and someone there is eagerly awaiting my arrival which makes it even better. Hooray for travel, and adventures, and a classroom full of little kiddies, and making money for even more future adventures!

There is a lot more to say about what I'll be doing, where I'm going, how I got to this point, etc etc etc, but I think this is enough for now. I'll leave you all to eagerly await my next entry...

Snow day!

Last week we got snow in Seattle!

It started snowing on Monday, and I was so delighted. I just love snow, I always have. My mom has reminded me of the strange childhood behavior I had - whenever it snowed, I'd go out to our backyard and just lie there, staring at the snow...in a t-shirt. And it's true. Well, I can't account for the t-shirt part, but I do remember lying there, thinking that maybe if I stared long enough, I'd be able to discern the individual crystal snowflakes. I was always searching for proof that every snowflake is in fact, as unique as we were taught in school; always wondering if they really looked like the paper snow flakes we cut out of coffee filters in art class.

There's just something about snow. Like when you walk through woods (on a snowy evening, with Robert Frost) and it muffles everything so completely you can hear individual snowflakes landing. How when the sun is shining it somehow sparkles yellow and blue, and at the same time remains blindingly white.

It makes sense, that old myth about the Eskimos (who I believe are actually the Yup'ik and Inuit peoples) having hundreds of words for snow - it can be wet, dry, powdery...Hm, they have a lot more experience with snow than I do, so of course they have more words. But I am reminded of how every snow day, the question of whether it will be the right kind of snow to build a snowman just added to the anticipation.

I grew up in Virginia, and my father always scoffed at how people in my town didn't know how to drive in snow.

Well, compared to Seattle, Virginia is doing great in the preparedness-for-snow department.

We got about two inches. The city shut down. On Monday the main bus out of my neighborhood just wasn't running. Period. On Tuesday the roads hadn't been plowed, or sanded, or salted. The result of all this was that it felt like a lot more snow than there really was, because it was so inhibitory. For me, that was great. I don't have a car, I didn't need to be anywhere. So I got to enjoy it. But I was amused. People say that it snows so infrequently in Seattle that it is just not worth it to invest in snow equipment. I wonder if this will change with climate change. What I remember from school is that climate change predictions for this area call for less snowpack in the mountains - I'm not sure if that would also translate to less snow here (the snowpack on the mountains has more to do with precipitation patterns than temperature).

Moonlit contemplations

The past couple of days have been pretty typical for this time of year in Seattle: drizzly, damp, cold. But the weather cleared up this evening - the sky was clear, the moon was out, there was a breeze strong enough to remember that it was fall but not strong enough to feel the need to arm yourself for weather. Even though I now live in a part of Seattle where I feel a lot safer being out alone at night, I'll admit that my childhood fear of the dark lingers enough that I still don't tend to do so. But tonight felt so welcome after all this drizzle damp, so I put on some sneakers and headed out.

You remember when you were little, that thing your mom taught you about dealing with the annoying younger brother? That the more annoyed you become by his behavior, the more effort he'll put in to egg you on -- but if you aren't bothered, he gets bored and goes away? I'm slowly discovering that all the questions, anxieties, and uncertainties in my life right now act much the same way. They create a lot of noise and clutter in my brain, but are easiest to deal with when I don't freak out about the noise and clutter - left to their own devices, they settle down.

I end up in a kind of "chicken or the egg" contemplation of the evening and these fluttering questions. The night was peaceful - was that what allowed me to relax enough to settle the fluttering? Or was the night peaceful because I'd settled the fluttering, and the quiet in my mind let me enjoy the evening?

Regardless, the nature of the evening rid me of agendas. I felt grateful to have been given this space, this stillness, in the midst of my fluttering uncertainties. So I let my feet decide which way they wanted to take me. Trusting that I'll get to where I'm going because where I'm going is right here. Knowing that I'll make it home when it is time, because my feet can know and my brain does not need to drive all the time.

I hear the wind go past my ears and the rhythm of my sneakers hitting the pavement with each step. I smell the landscapes of Seattle-ite yards - pine, lavender, rosemary, dried leaves damp on the sidewalk. The moon, though only a little more than half full, is illuminating the night so that the clouds shone in stark contrast to the night sky. At the peak of each rolling hill, the city lights blink and glimmer in the distance. And to the west - darkness, where land drops into the Sound.

Something about nighttime in the suburbs really resonates with me. The sun goes down, the street lights come on, and everyone is cozy inside making dinner, putting children to bed, sleeping early because they have real jobs in the morning. And so the sidewalks are all yours, the shadows, the sky. I always end up anthropomorphizing the cars, tucked away against the curbs for the night.

I found the empty streets tonight dustily familiar. My mind resurrected childhood memories of taking walks after dinner with my father, on days when the chaos of our household was overwhelming me. Perhaps we would talk, my dad and I, about what was upsetting me, but I don't remember. The important thing was the stillness, the break from the chaos. The streets were so wide, empty, inviting. There was space for me, for my thoughts. Nighttime empty streets don't ask or need, they just allow you to continue placing one foot forward after another.

Someone expressed to me recently that all the quarter-life crises I have - those times in which all those fluttering questions seem to be overwhelming me and weighing me down - are not a sign that I'm falling apart or breaking down, but a sign that I'm growing. And I suppose that sounds a bit schmaltzy (in fact this entire post is a bit more schmaltzy than my norm), but I dunno, it sounds good doesn't it?

Mind the gap

Last month while in Hong Kong, I had this repeat experience of forgetting I was in a foreign country while riding the subway. I'd walk down into the tunnel, look for the map that is invariably color coded and easily labeled, figure out where I am and what line my stop is. Follow the signs, which again are color coded and easily labeled, into the proper car...As I ride, the sign inside the subway car lights up at every stop so I can follow along - it is so very easy! So the shock always comes when I got off the car and follow the river of people exiting out, up, into the sunlight. Bam! People bustling everywhere, in your face, asian faces, hawkers, beggars. Bam! All of a sudden the sun is in your eyes and you take in a breath but the air is so humid and thick with fog that for a half a second your brain panics and thinks you are drowning, until your blood cells gather enough oxygen for your brain to realize that actually, you're ok, you are breathing just fine.

Because of this, I ended up gaining this vague appreciation for subways. I had this idea that anywhere I was, no matter how foreign, no matter how alone, the subway would be familiar. Just look for the color coded map.

This feeling remained for a while...my first weekend in South Korea (about two weeks after Hong Kong) was spent in Seoul and we successfully transited to destinations via subway. But then, my last day in South Korea, the day I had to catch a plane, dun dun dun, it allll changed (I am imagining ominous B-movie music here, as my laziness overcame my desire to come up with a more eloquent way of setting up this story)...

As you can see in the photo, the Seoul subway system is pretty intense. Initially though, I didn't think much of it, I thought it was all a matter of simplification - just find my station, find my destination, figure out the shortest route. Usually this strategy works. Signs in Korea are romanized, so I don't have to decipher the Korean alphabet. This strategy does NOT work, however, when there is a line under construction, some stations have maps that include this not-yet-existing line and some do not. And the explanation that there is construction is in tiny Korean print that is a) hard to notice amongst the web of color in your face and b) in Korean and therefore indecipherable. You see where this story is going. In short, I ended up transferring lines 5 times. At one station the confusion of "does this route exist or not??" led me to almost (only almost, hooray) get back on the train in the direction from which I had come (I walked from one side of the platform to the other and back, twice). This all was a result of me attempting to save a couple bucks by taking the subway instead of the airport shuttle. Next time I will just take the shuttle. Even when that direct line is built, I think its the easier option. And a couple bucks won't make me homeless.

September baby, you are mine

September has come and gone. It kind of snuck up on me - the end of August found me racing around, finishing up my summer job, packing/moving, hanging out with my mom and brother who came to visit. On September 1st, I was driving with them to a tiny place in Washington called Vaughn and we spent the next couple of days in a blissful rural bubble of a vacation home. Then the three of us flew to the Philippines and September 5 got lost into the time warp of the international date line. All of a sudden I was across the Pacific Ocean and it was September 6. That's when I realized. Hello September.

September is my favorite month. I always feel good about September. My birthday is in September. I estimate that about 25% of my friends (maybe more?) also have September birthdays. It's a good month. It feels fresh and new - perhaps because the school calendar has always been more significant to my life and changes in my life than the lunar calendar. September always feels like a time for beginnings, blank slates, and renewal. It's the beginning of fall - finally, a respite from the persistent summer air, crisp mornings, hay rides, autumn colors, scarves, crunchy leaves to walk in...

And now September is over. And with that, my travels (which I shall be describing in my next blogs) are over and I'm back in Seattle. Seattle is much further north than where I've spent most of the autumns of my life thus far. And here, fall is a much shorter season. And with fall passing, the realities of winter set in. That its going to be dark. And wet. (Side note: I'd much rather have snow than rain, but I live in Seattle. It was the same case in Williamsburg. I probably should move to Colorado - I hear it's sunny there in the summer AND winter, but they get actual snow) I'm not ready for winter. September, why must you only come once a year?