Rai

02:03 pm: /woot English update
............
...

Life is so impossibly busy! I think most of it is that I've never had my time organized into such neat little packages before, and had to organize everything else around them. I feel like recently I have had absolutely no discretionary time to waste online outside of research and minimal correspondence, but I am thinking this is mostly because I don't consider travel to be "discretionary time". If our SA group didn't spend time exploring and traveling, I think the work load would be quite manageable. However, moving around the country and seeing new places feels every bit as much of an educational and necessary experience as keeping up with readings and preparing presentations.

All things considered, though, the academics here are incredibly intense. I have read literally hundreds of pages so far, mostly augmented with group presentations for basically every class. Gladly, this is mitigated slightly by the fact that [most] classes just meet once a week. Still, considering we've been spending our weekends traveling, weeks go by in a flash and it's like...oh shit, we have 3 presentations to research and plan in like 2 days, and we have class for 8 hours both of those days and no internet.

That said, I really like school here. The lack of internet and otherwise free time makes me feel really focused. Plus, I really WANT to do most of my readings, and research consists of stuff that I would gladly read on my own. Archaeology is the main exception to this, which is painfully dull and sort of a struggle to get through, but in a couple weeks we're spending a week up in the Peten to visit and learn about the Mayan ruins up there, so I'm hoping it'll be a little more engaging after that.

I have a lot more comments but I'm not sure I'll have time to put them, at least not for awhile--there might be a tl;dr entry about lots of really inconsequential stuff coming in the future, but I doubt that's important to anyone but me.

I hope that everyone has been having as good of a time as I have. :) With luck I'll have a chance to slip online and catch up with some of you soon.

PS. I totally hiked up an active volcano yesterday. It was kind of like lord of the rings. I stuck my walking stick in the lava and it caught fire briefly. How awesome is Guatemala, guys? So awesome. >.>

12:33 pm: ( De pajijes y temblores )

12:32 pm: ( Ya llegué! )

03:32 am: Leaving on a jet plane...
Haha, so in about an hour I have to go to the airport for my flight to Guatemala.

My excitement has largely converted itself into nervousness. *_* Central America suddenly feels impossibly far away, even though I think technically Tucson is at a greater geographic distance from here. The fact that I'll be there less than 12 hours from now, and that I won't be stateside again for almost 4 months, seems kind of like a dream. I won't *actually* believe it is all real and happening until I step into the terminal at Guatemala City, I think.

So uhm anyway, I hope you all have a really great semester/winter-into-spring season. :) I'm sure this isn't an actual goodbye, since I know I'll have internet (though I'm not actually certain how easily or how often), and I'll be keeping up with LJ as much as I can. This may, however, be the last entry that I post *in English* for quite awhile.

So here goes nothing, and uh, wish me luck? I think I'm definitely going to need it >>;

02:56 am: Between epic amounts of sleep, nonstop snow, a 16 hour party, and Sherlock Holmes with friends, the past few days have been pretty amazing, actually.

Which makes me wonder why I'm still such an restless lump of unhappy.

I am thinking...that when I get bored, those are the moments when depression hits hardest and cuts deepest. I had come up with a whole bunch of ideas for things I wanted to do and accomplish over the break, but I have forgotten many, and those I can recall now seem unappealing without exception.

It doesn't help that I have a full 2 weeks left before I take off for Central America, while everyone else seems to have a week left of break, at most. Both my parents and my brother also end their respective vacations on Monday, and it feels odd that I should have so much more free time. I don't feel like I'm properly utilizing it.

I told myself I'd never take a winter class ever again, after the first time, but I think that if I have enough money, I might go for it. As much as it's nice to see my parents and friends, I really don't like this endless doldrums and unreasonably long break. Maybe if they offer PORT305 (Portuguese for speakers of Spanish, an accelerated course), I could take that over the winter next year. :P Hurrah for a year's worth of Portuguese in more or less a month. Yay! I like this idea already.

Also, I sliced my hand open with a guitar string. Apparently. Wtf, life...wtf.

05:30 pm: Almost Christmas? :>
Wow I feel like such a lump. I haven't accomplished a single productive task since I got home, which is a fact that is starting to bother me. o.O;

I'm also extremely confused. I feel kind of empty...not really in a bad way, but it's not in a good way either, and I'm just worried that my confusion and emptiness will end up hurting other people...or, worse, that they already have.

On the bright side, my parents got this Christmas blend of coffee from Trader Joes that tastes like spices, and drinking it puts me in such a good mood. The only problem is how quickly it gets cold. :\

Good coffee helps to balance the annoyance of the fact that I have now finally received all my grades except for one--my history grade, which was the ONLY one I wasn't sure about. Ah suspense! I'm pretty sure I deserved an A, but the TA kept losing my work--and even though I did basically every extra credit assignment, they're informal, and despite all the fiasco with her losing an IMPORTANT paper, I'm still not sure that she can match my name to my face. So I might have a B! It would be the first B of my college career, which I honestly think might be a good thing. The longer I keep up my average the more stubborn pressure I feel to maintain it.

Meh, this entry was pretty pointless and rambling, but that's a pretty good approximation to how life feels in general right now.

01:16 am: Study break
ejejeje

( Uhm, this is for ignoring. )

02:58 am: [Vaccine induced?] Hillarity
Note: [l] is my lame AIM way to represent ł.

matsuzuma (2:51:53 AM): tsilao so looks chinese
shiningaardvark (2:51:56 AM): hahah
shiningaardvark (2:51:58 AM): it means policeman
matsuzuma (2:52:05 AM): oh o.o
matsuzuma (2:52:10 AM): how do you say
matsuzuma (2:52:13 AM): "don't taze me, bro"
matsuzuma (2:52:14 AM): in navajo
shiningaardvark (2:52:18 AM): uhm
shiningaardvark (2:52:20 AM): hmmm
shiningaardvark (2:52:35 AM): the closest thing i know how to say is probably
shiningaardvark (2:52:51 AM): nitazer doo shi[l] [l]ikan da.
shiningaardvark (2:52:57 AM): your taser is not tasty to me.
matsuzuma (2:53:00 AM): XD
matsuzuma (2:53:06 AM): oh god, being tasered in the mouth sounds awful
shiningaardvark (2:54:09 AM): indeed

02:26 pm: A Few Updates
1. I have two minors now! Thematic (meaning I design it myself) focusing around environmental studies/ geography and regional development/ renewable natural resources, and Spanish langauge. I am slightly annoyed because there are a couple of advanced Spanish grammar/syntax courses I want to take that don't count, and there is a literature class that is required that I don't want to take. But in general I'm really excited. I also have to plan out more courses in Latin American Studies for next year so that everything will fit now that Spanish doesn't count for my major, heh.

2. Classes are over...and I'm shocked to realize that, in spite of everything, I had perfect attendance this semester (discounting classes missed for a field trip I took, but y'know). This was a good semester, academics-wise, I think. It's really amazing to be able to take things that you are interested in and that relate intricately with one another. Often this semester I would forget which class it was that taught me what, and that was cool because it meant that the curriculums were close enough to interact and enhance one another.

3. I just went to an orientation meeting specifically for Guatemala (there is a more general study abroad orientation later this evening), and I met all the other U of A students who are going, and I think it will be really amazing. I'm soo excited now. :D :D :D I want my class/booklist, dammit.

4. I have 3 more shifts at the deli (tomorrow, Sunday, Monday), and then I'm DONE. Possibly forever. Holy shit.

5. Uhm, yeah. I have 4 exams and one take-home essay exam between now and next Thursday, at which point I'm moving in with Andres for the next 3 days until Sunday. And then I'm going home. Time is moving so fast and I love it. :) I hope everyone else's finals are going/have gone really well.

11:58 pm: Rain
Today I got stuck in the rain as I was walking between Peoria and Glendale, AZ. It was sunset and cloud tendrils were streaking downwards across the distant mountains through shades of orange and pink and gold. I took cover beneath a shop stoop and watched and laughed aloud at the beauty and at the irony of getting caught in desert rain.

Ray is really sick and in such a bad mood he won't even talk to me, and I am really restless. I want to go back to Tucson (what? did I just say that?) and pull Andres's arms around me and finish my work and take my exams and get on a plane back home.

I found the perfect song to describe the life and the itching and the impatience and the ardor I feel right now. It's beautiful and utterly appropriate and I love it. I've translated it (below) if anyone is interested--it's kind of a loose and shoddy translation though (now that I'm about to complete a class on legitimate translation, I feel the need to make this disclaimer, heh).



( Lyrics in English )

09:55 am: sdfksjdfklsdfj sdf Sooooo sleepy.
This morning I woke up in Andres's bed at 7.50 (I have class at 8), and after spending 3 minutes trying to convince myself that I didn't care enough, I dragged myself up and made him bring me back to campus. :P Heh. He was angry, of course, but in retrospect it was a good idea; my Navajo professor addressed the concept of dual versus plural verbs for the first time today (up until this point we have only learnt verbs in their singular forms).

This past week has been interesting. I've felt alternatively very relaxed and somewhat emotionally compromised, but in general, it has been good.

I like today. The air this morning feels like the late fall that it is. Yesterday I tried something that I had never done before and now the morning seems particularly fresh. Plus, there is just 1 lunch shift between me and 4 days in Phoenix.

All I need to do is be awake...

11:27 am: This is just to help me remember...
...but I'm posting it here in case one of the like...3 Arizona people sees/wants to come to one of the events ;D

OKAY OKAY OKAY

Must not forget:
Next week--
Monday, Nov. 30th 11.30AM Douglass 101 (advising appointment)

Tuesday, Dec. 1st 5.30PM Chavez 110 (lecture: Fossil Fuels, Mine Labor & Industrial Struggle: Making Sense of the Colorado Coalfield War)

Friday, Dec. 4th 3.30PM AME S202 (lecture: Can we Save Arizona's Sonoran Desert?)

01:03 am: Back on Track...?


This song makes my heart leap. It strikes me as very Mexican. I want to wrap my arms around it and hold it close to me and take in all of the beautiful and invigorating images that float to mind as I listen.

I'm taking a short break from essay writing at the moment. It feels like procrastination, and it is, but I do feel like I am in the process of re-evaluating and reinstating my academic focus. I have been slipping really seriously recently and I hate hate hate feeling the pressure of the work that I know I should be doing, but am not. Even as I try to pretend away my scholastic shackles they persist in restraining every part of me, reminding me that at this point of my life, I am a student. It is my primary and most abiding purpose, and it is my excuse for and my objective in being here in this place that I have grown to love. School really can feel like manacles--I fight eagerly to be free but the more that I try to disentangle myself the more I end up hurting from the attempt.

But things are getting better. Today my life changed, a little bit, when Andres asked me to go on an errand with him and I told him no. He asked again, and again, and again, and I repeated my answer: no. This may seem like something mundane but really it is everything. I am getting to the point where his persistent "ándale, ven conmigo" cannot simply melt away my life and all its other considerations. I am learning to balance him with my own self. That gives me a vague glimmer of hope in a sustainable togetherness beyond this semester; one that, in full honesty, I have not felt even an inkling of before. After we parted ways, I spent the afternoon doing homework and making a time management plan to catch up on all of the readings I have neglected in the past weeks.

Just in general, I'm tired of feeling the cold and the exhaustion and the futility. I am tired of feeling like such a shit pile and a fuckup. I'm tired of living from day to day, from one absolutely mandatory assignment to another, between Andres's kisses and cup after cup of coffee. I can't do it. I can see the semester precipitating in this overwhelming tide and I don't want to be washed away. My lack of consistent preparation means that the next few weeks will be pure agony, but I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to face them and reassert my own agency in the craziness that is my life.

All I really want sometimes is to go home to Boston and curl up under a huge pile of blankets and dissolve all the responsibility and commitment and frustration into a long and satisfying sleep. And I will. But first I have to earn it. I guess that means I should go back to my essay, heh.

11:43 pm: LOL
This is pointless, but the dork in me thought it merited mentioning:

On T9 programs, apparently "selection" and "rejection" have the same sequence.

It's like a modern technology oxymoron, or something. :P Irony? I'm not sure what it is.

03:17 am: Two shards...linguistically speaking.
Díí béegashi shibéegashi át'é.

This cow is my cow.

Nadie me calma como tú.

No one calms me like you do.

12:26 am: Arghghgh
So today when I tried to log into my WebAunth account (the sign in to the U of A online network that leads to student link functionalities, webmail, online course materials, etc etc), it told me that my password had been in use for 360 days, and thus I had to change it for security reasons. Okay...so I changed it. And all day since then I'd been having problems with logging in--it took several tries even though I was making pretty damn sure that I was typing the new password correctly several times. I think my keyboard has been sticky recently, but it's more than just that, because after so many failed attempts, I was being careful to make sure the keys were actually registering.

So finally, it came to a point where I was just trying multiple times hoping one time would finally get me in, and it was like "lol, your account has been locked from too many wrong attempts in sequence. You can now unlock your account by following the links..."

And it turns out that one of the things that I need to unlock my account is my student pin, a random number that I literally forgot entirely because I haven't used it *since my orientation* and I had no idea that it would continue to be relevant beyond that point. I'm sure that I emailed it to myself once for safekeeping, but it's not on my hotmail, meaning that I was probably storing it on my university webmail, which I *cannot access because my account is locked*. It is looking like my only option will be to call the registrar's office tomorrow and try to find out my pin/other options to unlock my account.

What the fuck? Why, U of A, would you be such a fucking pile of crap that you'd lock an account *permanently* just for getting a password wrong like 5 times? That is such crap. Granted I'm exhausted and have plenty of work to do that I can't all access right now...and that is not helping my bitchiness levels...but there is a part of me objectively astounded by this. I guess it's my own damn fault for not remembering my pin, but seriously...it's not a piece of information I have barely ever used ever. It seems unreasonable to me that it would be used to unlock WebAunth, but not really for anything else? ls;dfjsldfkj idk.

And I guess the fact that my brain is bubbling with unhappy expressions such as "arghghgh no mames" and "qué rechingada" means that I have perhaps maybe been spending a little bit too much time with Andres.

Ahahaheh. -_- Please, please let tomorrow be a better day.

02:56 am: hey.
Progress is a VALUE-LADEN idea.

...I'd say more, but I have class in 5 hours and it's been a really long day.

02:45 am: Meepz
...to the West is a desert land where
I'itoi, the Elder Brother,
looked out and then said to the people,
"In this place you will live
as long as you remember
all around you is sacred."

Though it seems to be empty and dry
the desert is always filled with life.
Those tall cactuses that lift their arms
up into the sky are ancient people
who promised to always look over those
chosen to live in this sandy place..."
-Tohono O'odam (Papago) myth, as interpreted by Joseph Bruchac in Between Earth and Sky

----

I just printed out all my materials for my study abroad application. I feel a little overwhelmed by it all, but at this point I think I can do it. I talked to my advisor today, and he told me a bunch of unpleasant plans that were his and not mine. But at this point I won't argue--not yet. I need him to sign my packet. I'm not sure if I'm going to do an honors thesis. I want to study water resources. I want to continue learning Spanish. I might want to intern with a sustainability group. *I want to go to Guatemala in the spring.* If those are incompatible with scrambling to find a thesis advisor and starting to feverishly research, I'm not sure it's worth it to graduate from the honors college.

But at the same time, shit, since when do I know what I want?

These past few weeks have been a blur of studying in the library until sunrise, dodging uncomfortable social situations, and performing various soul-searching quests. There were, as feared, unwanted advances that I not-so-gracefully evaded. Mostly I just feel that my brain is not quite in the right place, but it could be. I'm going to keep trying.

All of my classes are pretty fantastic, though. Even Navajo, which is painful and frustrating in its implementation, inspires me in ways that I can't even really explain. I love and despise its opacity. It channels a frame of mind and perspective on life that is so unique, or at least so different from mine. I kind of want to soak it up through my skin and understand it deeply--but at the same time I'm certain that I never truly will. In a way, that is the beauty of it.

Last Thursday I dragged Ray down to El Hoyo, we and explored the old part of Tucson nestled behind the city center that was built back when the Santa Cruz river ran free and deep and mexicanos had their own public gardens and bathhouses. Before the water disappeared.

( There were pretty things )

The neighborhood was awash with historical character that was muted by its desolation. We encountered nobody in the streets, which was probably a good thing in retrospect, but it cast a spectre of loneliness on the whole place. Strangely, on our way back to campus Ray and I got stuck in a monsoon squall and ended up being approached with a crazy old man who shared our shelter and revealed to us that he was a Navajo, and nearly fell over backwards when I said Ya'át'ééh to him.

Basically, the past couple of weeks have been some of the strangest in memory.

And I should probably go to bed now.

02:42 am: It's all possible
Tonight when I was walking back to my dorm from the library, the moonlight was milky and lambent and it was difficult to distinguish sky from clouds from glow from darkness. The reflections were profound yet gentle and in some ways they made it seem brighter than it was, and the sky was alight as if it were almost the beginnings of dawn.

At 2AM, on the deserted open mall, I spun around and took in the entire sky and pretended it was dawn and that I was the only person in the world who was able to see it.

It was pretty incredible. I'm in a much better mood now.

I've also just started to do a load of laundry (yay for no machine competition..) but I'm starting to doubt the wisdom behind the timing, even if I have no clean clothes left even for tomorrow.

"When you look back at your life, you discover, or you invent, points in time that seem to be tightly knotted nodes of possibility. out of the seemingly endless options that present themselves in a given situation, you choose one in particular, and your life and the lives of those around you start moving relentlessly toward a particular outcome."
-Walter Satterthwait

My Mexican history professor quoted that in one of his textbooks and I can't seem to get it out of my head. I think I'm currently experiencing one of the life-nodes. With each passing day I am less and less sure how things are going to turn out, but I'm just kind of going with it for now. And chronic sleep deprivation notwithstanding, I am sort of looking forward to tomorrow. :o

10:57 pm: Bwa school
My life is so weird. Approximately 3 hours ago I was banging my head against several different textbooks in the library. And then, 2 and a half hours ago, I was at IHOP with a couple of dudes. How Andrés managed to convince me to leave my studying and get pancakes, I'm not really sure.

But I'm kind of glad he did. Also, I might have officially found a native speaker of Spanish I might be able to practice with and not turn into an utter stuttering mess? ^^;;;

In other news I decided to stay in Navajo...class on Friday was an improvement on the rest of the week--still not totally what I wanted, but better enough to merit risking it. And I've read forward in my textbook a bit and it just looks so cool. DD: Damn you, Diné, for being so cool! Diné bizaad shił nizhoní. Diné bizaad = Navajo language, shił = not really sure, something to do with "to me" or "for me", nizhoní = beautiful.
Or something like that.

My eye keeps ticcing like crazy and it's starting to bug me. Usually I have a tic that pops up for a few hours every few weeks, but this past week it's been basically nonstop and it's beginning to become a distraction.

Also, awesomely, apparently about half of the girls wing on my floor has come down with swine flu. I myself feel not so great either--my throat kind of stings and I feel weak. But I'm comforting myself with the fact that I've felt this way all day and it doesn't feel like life-destroying influenza yet. Yet. *flails*

Hmm apparently Canyon is closing, so I might have to schlep back to the library, since apparently Yavapai turned their study room into offices. Brilliance...