Happiness is a summer afternoon

Today after reading until my eyes were tired, I went out for a wog (walk/jog) because it was such a beautiful day. The sun had just tilted past the midway point between noon and sundown, which is my favorite time of day - the light becomes more golden, the shadows lengthen, and all the colors seem richer.

As I broke into an easy jog, I suddenly felt so happy that all I could do was grin.
I finished this sock the other day... but now I can't find its mate!!

I was thinking about Terry, and how wonderful my life is because he loves me. That's what made me grin.

First Day of School

First day of school! New notebooks, new pens, new syllabi. Fun! It was a rainy, warm day - very muggy and humid. I forgot my umbrella so I had to go sit in the library and read while I waited for it to stop so I could go home. I have another class tonight.

No new yarn news. I am finishing a sock and will probably cast on another one right away. For some reason I am totally unmotivated to to finish the "blissful" jacket (designed by Debbie Bliss) that I started in Dallas. Not satisfied with how the stripes are going.

Running at an easy lope

So today I jumped the last scary hurdle before the semester starts - my oh-so-drama-inducing "Q exam." Basically, I met with my committee to discuss my project and decide on a plan for coursework. It went well, and I feel free and happy and ready to plunge into reading, writing, teaching, and grading.

The plan is: take classes this Fall and Spring. During the Spring semester I will write a research proposal to submit to funding sources for my field research. During the summer I will read my butt off (or eyes out) (or both) and in the Fall of 2008 I will write my A exams. I can actually do most of that work from Virginia, or anywhere else in the world, which will be nice since my parents will be in the US by then! In January 2009 I will start my field research for at least one calendar year, maybe 3 semesters depending how things go.

Then I come back to write my dissertation.

p.s. Tara, check comments on previous post for answer to your question re Knitty pattern!

Take the Country Quiz!

You're Costa Rica!

You're about as peaceful as anyone on the planet, a real dyed-in-the-wool
pacifist. And why not? No one really poses much of a threat to you and
everything seems to work out, no matter how much violence and insanity rages all around
you. So you relax and appreciate nature and culture while the rest of the world
carries on their petty disagreements. If only everyone could follow your
example...


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

Weekend

Starting in Dallas, my left wrist started popping. You know, like when you crack your knuckles. I think it was some of the marathon knitting I did there that brought it on. Now I find myself periodically twirling my left hand and extending my three middle fingers one at a time to make it pop. If I don't pop it, it hurts or at least feels uncomfortable. This whole twirly-gesture is almost becoming an unconscious habit and I think it wierds people out a little bit.

This whole week I felt as though I was running along the Track, with a series of hurdles looming larger and larger (remember those old wooden hurdles that were made at the carpenter's shop?). There's that apprehension, the gathering of energy, and *spring!* the exhileration of clearing the first one. (I hated, hated, hated track and field with every fiber of my being but these long Phelps legs were at least good for clearing hurdles. Usually.)

Well, today I cleared my first big hurdle for the Fall and it feels really good. I met with my course superviser for the Freshman Writing Seminar I'm teaching this fall, and it was energizing and helpful and even fun! I'm so excited about this course - preparing the syllabus reminded me why I'm here: I LOVE to teach. I can't wait!

Chained to my laptop

I got bored sorting through a backlog of e-mails, so here you have a new post...

Second sock syndrome (I knit the one on the right first, then the one on the left, without making the pair for the first sock first. I NEVER do this. Ordinarily.)

And second sock syndrome overcome! I think of these as patchwork socks since they were made out of leftovers from other socks. Any randomness is actually coincidental as I pretty much planned how the stripes would go. OCD, much?

While you're killing time reading knitting blogs, take a minute to remember the people in Peru who just suffered from a massive earthquake. Two missionary women my parents know were living in the area and have not been heard of.

Home - briefly!

I'm home, very tired, but relaxed and happy. There was enough time to see friends and to organized and pack my Stuff. As I sat on the living room floor sorting clothes, memories of doing this same thing a year ago floated quietly to the surface of my mind. All the unknowns, dissolved into certainty. This year the excitement is somewhat subdued, but the gladness is still there. I love being in school. Terry's in Colombia for another couple weeks so I'm flying solo right now but thankful for Internet connections!

Knitting pics coming soon!

Last leg - almost

Greetings from Colombia! My mind is already partly in Harrisonburg and Ithaca, making grocery lists and schedules and thinking of things I need to remember to pack. But most of my attention has been on the present moment, which is much easier to do here than in Bolivia where every sight and sound dredged up memories from the past.

This is country #20 for me, and for some reason I didn't expect it to be so surprisingly different from other Latin American countries I've visited. I guess I never thought about Colombia too much. But I don't even know what to compare Bogota to, or Cali.

Impressions:
Bogota - flat and even plain between green mountains, high-rise apartment buildings and a speedy "millenium tranport" bus running down the middle of the street. Quaint tiled houses with a colonial/European flavor converted into office buildings. Strings of zeros on the bills. Light misty rain, breathless climbing the stairs, glad for wool socks.

Cali - fields and fields and fields of sugar cane, mountains on the horizon, blooming trees, and a river winding through the middle of the city shaded by enormous gnarled trees. I love it that the built the streets following the curves of the river instead of straightening the river with a canal to match straight streets.

Colombia is so much more diverse than I imagined - geographically, ethnically, culturally. It's just a fascinating place.

The MCC programs here are focused very much on peace-building; you can read this volunteer's blog for more details on that aspect of it - certainly a closer perspective than I could give after just a few days!

Tomorrow we have the day mostly off, and Monday I leave for the US!!! Time flies.

GRRRR!!!!! Arg!!! *Sob*

SOMEONE STOLE MY YARN!!!!!

A couple days ago, I went looking for some of the yarn I brought with me, multicolored green-blue-yellow bamboo yarn that I bought originally to make a tank top for Anita. I ended up using a cotton-silk blend instead because it was softer, and set aside the bamboo yarn (yes, it really is made out of bamboo!) for something else. Then Interweave Knits came out with a beautiful pattern using this very yarn and I was quite excited. I had exactly enough to make it, too.

Well, I packed it in the outside pocket of one of the suitcases we brought, since I didn't plan to work on it en route. When I got here I started right in on a sock and didn't feel up to tackling a tank top right away. But then I thought maybe I'd at least swatch the lace pattern, but couldn't find the yarn.

We searched high and low but no go. It's really gone. I'm so mad, especially because I had a pair of circular needles in there that are part of a set that is composed of plastic thingies with screws on the ends that you attach different sized short needles onto, and now my set will be missing that size of ends, plus TWO plastic thingies. The main reason I put it in checked luggage anyway was because I didn't want to risk the TSA taking my knitting needles away!!!!!

I'll get over it. It was just very annoying. I know other people lost a lot more than yarn and knitting needles in this summer's tornado season.

Hello from Bolivia!

Sorry for not posting until now, but it has been an intense 10 days and looks to continue that way for the foreseeable future. Essentially we have had one free afternoon in all that time, with evening meals often turning into interviews as well. On the free afternoon I slept for five hours!

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to come back to Bolivia after 7 years. This place is redolent of nostalgia, but also an opportunity to measure change over time. Not just the changes in the country or in MCC, but in myself. It's strange to feel the presence in my own mind of the young person I was 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7 years ago. It's also strange how sharp the memories are of grief, a particular loss that implicated a certain loss of innocence for me. Last week when we arrived and drove to the MCC office, the very first thought in my mind when I saw the front gate was "that's where I was standing when I found out Krista died." Krista Ausland was a 25-year-old woman who was killed in a bus accident in 1998, which her husband survived. This weekend we actually drove past the place where she died, although I didn't see the marker that her husband had put there. It seems like road repairs may have taken it out.

Not to be all morbid and everything.

It's fun to be back here with Terry, as a married couple, and to remember things together and compare notes on things that have changed. Right now it is winter here, and the tajibo and gallito trees are in full bloom. The weather is cool. I still feel like part of the MCC family. When we arrived and walked out of the customs area at the airport, I realized that this was the very spot where I first laid eyes on Terry! And it just gets better every year.

Not much news

Volunteering, doing a little "research," trying to stay on top of yardwork and reading for this Fall... The countdown has begun for our second trip to South America this year. We leave Sunday for Bolivia and Colombia! I'm having to re-think my usual "tropical professional" set of things I usually take since it will be surazo season and could get as cold as 43 degrees at night (with no heating in the buildings).


Meanwhile, here are some long-overdue knit pics!
See, I have been knitting! The socks are mismatched - you might not be able to tell, but I can. One has a longer toe than the other. These were a father's day gift for my dad, but he said he likes them the way they are and wouldn't say which one to adjust to match the other!

The shawl I am modeling and the one on the bed are two versions of the same pattern; the one I'm wearing is just an extension of the other, which is basically a neck scarf. Both are knit using Indiecita baby alpaca yarn, the neck scarf on size 8 and the other on size 7 needles.

The work-in-progress was my Dallas project; it's now much further along than what you see. I hope to finish it during a Lord of the Rings movie marathon this Saturday!

Not much knitting!

I'm back in Harrisonburg, Yay!
The house is in disarray since one of our former students is moving into the downstairs bedroom, so I had to clear out all our junk from there (we were using it as a catch-all sort of room) and redistribute it around the house.

My trip from Ithaca was uneventful, but exhausting. I don't think I really had a good night's sleep in about 4 or 5 days. On Monday I spent most of the day relocating my sub-letter, since my landlady wanted her out - but we found a place with one of my friends. Tuesday I was on the bus all day, and spent that night in DC with my friend Sara from Wheaton AND Cornell - that was awesome, but she had to leave early in the a.m. on a trip. So I got up pretty early too. I spent the day wandering around the Mall area, catching the tail end of the 4th of July parade, and checking out the Folk Life Festival - it was very cool. I caught a ride home with our new tenant who was at a Cubs/Nationals game (baseball) in the city.

It's good to be home although I feel like I have a ton of work to do...

It's not Nirvana, it's just life

Another gorgeous day in the Finger Lakes! The only metaphorical cloud on the horizon is that my landlady doesn't like my subletter and wants her to move out this weekend, so I'm having to pass on that uncomfortable news.

It still just feels really, really good to be here. It's like when I came back to campus last January - I feel like me again - the me I most want to be, when I'm here.

Happy Friday!

Yay, I'm in Ithaca! It's a beautiful, beautiful day and I got all my "stuff" done this morning. I have resolved to stay the weekend and just enjoy being here, relatively carefree.

Getting out of Dallas turned out to be harder than I thought - I showed up at the airport Weds. morning only to find long lines of very grumpy, tired people - many of whom had stayed the night in the airport, since a bunch of flights had been delayed or cancelled due to torrential rains the previous day. I tried to do the self-check-in, but the machine wasn't working right - so I got in line. I was in line for an hour and a half, watching the clock tick past the point after which I could no longer check in... I couldn't call Terry, because the cell phone kept cutting out... finally I used my credit card to make a pay phone call, only to find that I'd been inputting the wrong destination city! He had bought a ticket to Syracuse via New Orleans, NOT Ithaca via Atlanta!!! I was pretty mad until I made it to the check-in counter and found out that the New Orleans flight had been cancelled anyway.

Long story short, they put me on the LAST SEAT for a direct flight to Syracuse, the next day. So Terry came to get me and we had a little more time together.

The next day things went much more smoothly.

East and North

So my time in Dallas is almost up - I am short of where I wanted to be both in terms of knitting and in terms of reading, but I realize that the first week was mostly adapting to being here, and the second week was mostly gone to Wisconsin.

The conference in WI was really fun; we had a lovely hotel room and the people were all interesting. I had the opportunity to tour the college of the Menominee Nation, which was really cool and beautiful. The downside of the whole thing was driving 2200 miles (round trip), the return part overnight. By altering our route coming back, we ended up driving through seven different states (Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas). That's a lot of asphalt.

This past weekend we enjoyed a hike through the Cedar Ridge preserve, and a visit to the Dallas World Aquarium, both very enjoyable.

Wednesday I fly to Ithaca, then catch a bus Saturday to Harrisonburg.

Doing

So I have a bunch of new projects on the needles, but alas you will have to wait until I can download the photos. Right now Terry and I are at a conference in Wisconsin (community development - we'll see how much knitting I can sneak in without looking unprofessional! I think this particular crowd will be forgiving though.

I feel really good, being here. I realized that the past three weeks have felt like an odd sort of limbo - I kept wearing my Cornell t-shirt just to remind myself that, yes, I AM a student there. Not having structure yet feeling like good grief there's so much to DO, but I wasn't doing it, and there were no consequences for not doing it, really threw me for a loop. And yet, not so different from my volunteer days (vague, self-directed assignment, total lack of supervision and structure, and that continuous internal pressure to for God's sake DO SOMETHING!)

Here, to my great relief, I suddenly have a very clear script, role, and persona (think Goffman, if you're into social science) and Hallelujah, I know exactly what to do with myself.

Besides knit. :-)

Further Travel Adventures

Terry sometimes remarks that "travel" and "torture" come from the same root ("travail", perhaps?)

After seven relatively uneventful days in Cuzco (well, uneventful apart from a case of E. Coli and other relatively minor misadventures, mostly bathroom-related) our group divided, amoeba-like, into two groups. One group went off to hike the Inca Trail (4-day stairmaster with ruins) and the other group went off to explore a more roundabout, but wheeled, approach to Machu Picchu.

Everyone spent the night here at my parents' house since we had an early-morning wake-up call and were going to be picked up en masse. But then the taxi-drivers association started threatening to strike and block roads starting at 5 a.m. Thursday, the day we were scheduled to leave. There was some talk of canceling the strike on the part of the union president, but even so our tour agency decided to preemptively reschudule our departure for 4:30 a.m.! Which we did... and then the strike was cancelled anyway.

I went with the non-hiking group. We had a leisurely two days exploring the Sacred Valley, seeing such fascinating sites as this and this, and thoroughly exploring Ollantaytambo.

Then we caught a bus at 9 p.m. headed for the small high-jungle town of Santa Teresa. Only we had to change buses at around 4 a.m. in Santa Maria. Two guys from our tour agency met us on the bus. One of the students described the ride as "interesting," in the most euphemistic sense possible! Another student reported that she was praying the whole time to die quickly rather than prolonged suffering as result of the accident we were certain to have. I found out later that this was the same road I took last time (2 years ago) to Quillabamba, and it's honestly not all that bad. It was just dark out, and all you could see was the winding dirt road, about 1.5 lanes wide, rock cliff face on one side and sheer darkness on the other. The girls were carsick and v. tired; I think myself I might have slept about 20 minutes. At least that's what it felt like.

At 2 a.m. I asked the guy next to me where we were; "not there yet," he said after looking out the window. A block later I saw a sign that said "Santa Maria public bathrooms" (in Spanish). Hmmm.... I thought. A little later the guide asked the driver where we were, next thing I knew we were piling off the bus and looking for a way to get back since we'd, actually, passed it. (Our guides were a little inexperienced.) Fortunately we found someone with a car to drive us back, about 20 minutes, and caught our next bus.

Two sleepless hours later, dawn happened as we rolled into Santa Maria, a tiny little high jungle town crawling with grungy backpacker types avoiding (like we were) the expensive train to Machu Picchu by going the long way around. We had breakfast there (pancakes and eggs) and then chilled out before heading to some absolutely beautiful hot springs to relax for several hours. I fell asleep by the pool and got a little tan! Sorry I don't have pictures - I don't carry a camera, I just rely on other shutterbugs.

In the afternoon we made our way by van and train to the ramshackle jumping-off point of Aguas Calientes. It was relaxing - in fact, three of the girls fell asleep on the train despite the stunning scenery. You could even see the back side of Machu Picchu from below - I had never come this way before so was pretty impressed!

We got a hotel in Aguas Calientes, and the minute I said "this is our room," one girl fell into bed with her glasses on and was instantly asleep. It was pretty hilarious.

Further adventures forthcoming - Terry is wanting to go into town here and do some errands or something.
TTFN!

Interesting Times!

Look at my new socks! They have come with me to Peru and kept my toes warm in the mountains.

So... we have definitely been having some adventures:

Item 1: The day before leaving the US, one of our students did not have her passport. She ended up going in person to the National Passport Center in DC at 7:30 a.m. and getting in line. By 9:00 she had her passport in hand and was able to join us at the airport 90 minutes before our flight!

Item 2: Once we arrived in country, Terry and I made an optimistic change of plans - to take the night bus from Huaraz to Lima in order to catch our flight to Cuzco a few hours later that same morning. (The original plan was to take the day bus, spend a night in Lima, and head out in the morning.) But our optimism was to be sorely tested!
- 2a: Our bus, while quite comfy, got TWO flat tires during the night! I was astonished at the speed of repair, but even so my heart was in my throat during the whole night as I wondered if the delays would mean missing our flight. However, fate was smiling upon us as we reached Lima with a generous 2 1/2 hours to spare. Which we would end up needing, because...
- 2b: When we went to check in, quite early, we learned that our travel agent had made a mistake and changed our reservation at the last minute from the the 9th to the 12th!!! HOW does this happen, you ask? It´s another long story, but it took the better part of an hour to straighten it all out. I pretty much flipped my lid which doesn´t happen too often. This left us just enough time to pay the airport tax, go through security, find our gate, with 15 minutes to spare for the students to get some kind of breakfast.

I have to say, our group is really good. They have kept up quite positive attitudes and good spirits despite the laundry list of the following:
- sunburned lips that blistered and provoked fever
- a running total of about 5 unanticipated hours of uphill hiking, some with luggage
- a lost (new) digital camera with photos of graduation still on it
- sunscreen spilled all over the interior of a bag
- honey spilled all over the interior of a backpack
- a pretty steady diet of potatoes, broad beans, soup, and bread for 3 days in a rural village
- a case of amoebas
- three cases of wool allergy (sleeping under wool blankets - had to swap out for other people´s sleeping bags)
- one case of exercise-induced asthma

That´s all I can think of right now... I feel like I´m not taking very good care of my kids here!

On the other hand, we have had some quite wonderful times as well:
- incredible beauty: green mountains with snow-capped peaks, cold mountain streams, rocky outcroppings, little patchwork fields
- spending time with Quechua farmers in their homes
- eating fresh honey harvested the same day from the hive
- chewing on corn stalks (almost as sweet as sugar cane here, without the chemical fertilizers)
- experiencing a pachamanca (earth oven) celebration with dancing
- hanging out with our local guide, Jhonny, who impressed the students with his detailed knowledge of local history
- being erroneously but persistently identified as Cornell students :-)
- seeing the incredibly bright and clear stars through the thin mountain air

Now we are in Cuzco and Terry and I are a little more relaxed now we´ve shuffled off the kids to various host families. Today we went to Sacsayhuaman where there were actual condors that someone had caught and domesticated hanging out there (I´m really not sure I quite liked that, actually). Tomorrow is a free day but everybody´s going to a local soccer match - even me!

running amok

Yesterday I:
- was a bad immigrant activist and missed any and all May 1 protests / celebrations / demonstrations, etc.
- showed the apartment to a potential sub-letter. Five hours later I moved out, and she moved in!
- attended my last class of the year at CU
- turned in 3 of my 4 final papers and sundry reading responses
- drove to VA and packed for Peru
- finished a knitting project (sorry no pictures yet)
- planned the orientation for the Peru students

Terry, bless his heart, drove to NY to pick me up Monday night, then we returned together. He drove the whole way back, too, while I slept for 3 hours.

Today we:
- oriented the Peru students (everything you need to know, in 2 hours!)
- did crisis management for one student whose passport isn't here yet (we leave at 11 tomorrow)
- ran around like crazy tying up the thousand little threads of paperwork etc that need to get done (like, I had to fill out another I-9 form at EMU)

Spring is in full bore here - flowers, flowers, flowers, and leaves everywhere - dandelions galore - my yard is FULL of weeds. That will have to wait until we get back, however!

But I think we're in good shape, so far...

Nose to the Grindstone

I took a little walk and study break near sunset; this was just so pretty. Now my landlady is baking brownies upstairs and it smells sooo good!