confession

for the last two years of college, i drove three, sometimes four, hours from st. joe to watertown.  it is putting it lightly to note that the radio stations in those little pockets of Highway 23 and 212 are sparse.  my options generally fluctuated between james dobson-esque christian programming, classic music npr, or various country music stations.  

i grew up in south dakota.  like any self-respecting kid, i HATED country music growing up.  

but, friends, given the options, i regularly chose the country stations.

and, somehow, it became a part of me. i learned the music.  i know the words.  i remember the names of the big artists.  

so now, when greg is gone (he hates country as much as i hate his led zeppelin...thank god for the middle ground of uncle tupelo), i turn on my dixie chicks pandora station.  

yeah.  its true.  and i love it.  

back in the blogosphere. also...back in the country.

okay.  so here's a funny/dumb thing about blogging.  blogging is often used amid transitions, to keep loved ones abreast of current where-abouts, plans, etc.  but when i'm in the midst of a big transition, the LAST thing i find space for is blogging. 

i wonder when some phd student will write that dissertation about the psychology of blogging.  

which is all a way of saying...we're settling back into life in the u.s. its sort of sad not to be using my spanish and i miss my ESL students, but i'm trying to take deep breaths and let myself have time to transition (gawd, i'm so bad at transitions).

so i've started to notice there is a nice, wet smell to olympia.  it's sort of warm and wintery all at once.  i like it, especially on my morning runs. 

i really don't know how people run at any other time of day.  the calm hush of mornings, the lingering dew on the grass, the sleepy-eyed garbage trucks, and old ladies in bathrobes letting the dog out.  i mean, its a shame to live in an urban area and have to run on the streets, but it's also a great way to get to know the ins & outs of the neighborhood.

and wow!  is internet fast here in the lower 48!!  and cheap!  holy cow. 

she called me rubia!

It happens so regularly that I should stop being so surprised: something I think I know here in Argentina gets turned upside-down in a heartbeat.

Okay, so here’s the story. A week ago, I invited my students to get in touch with me if any of them would like to get together with me to have coffee and talk for an hour in English and an hour in Castellano. Yesterday, I had a little language exchange with one of my English students and two of her friends. Of course, it happened to be with my favorite student (and who, por casualidad, has the same name as my grandma—Ines), so I was delighted when she took me up on my offer. Anyway, she had described me to her friends as “rubia.” Well, “gringa” and “rubia,” but the “gringa” I expected!

“Rubia,” my friends, I would never have expected to be applied to me. I have dark hair and decidedly yellow-tinted skin tone. Rubia, I thought, was reserved for women with blonde hair and light skin.

Well. Turns out that Ines described me as “rubia” because of my blue eyes!

I had no idea that could happen.

change in plans

All right, change in plans. We’ve decided to head to Olympia at the end of the month—Sea-town on the 31st. So I’ll finish up at the school next Friday, Greg’s going to Buenos Aires for the weekend to visit our friend Brian from Juneau. Then we’re going to travel around a bit and head out of Santiago on the night of the 30th.

Jobs, PhD apps, bakeries…these sort of things have got us headed North. I’m already drawing up plans for Caracas☺.

Alaskans in Mendoza

Also, check this. On Monday, a new woman joined my class at school. Her name is Aimee and she’s from (drum roll please!!!)



Alaska.


She lives in Anchorage now, but was born in Kotzebue. I’ve been in Kotzebue, but only on a fly-through in bad weather.

Small world, huh?

Blockbuster in Argentina

Check this out. I went into Blockbuster to just check out the options and decided to rent a flick, not quite sure how it would work. I actually handed them my Juneau, Alaska, card…and it worked!!!

Wow. My Boston card wouldn’t work in Alaska.

Globalization, my friends; globalization. And I hate to admit I enjoyed it.

the swiss couple

So the other day, G & I were wandering around Mendoza, just kicking it, when we ran into one of the many Swiss couples we’ve met at the school. After a few minutes chit-chatting on the street, we decided to reconvene at their apartment in an hour. They are this great couple, with a super-relaxed vibe. And! A six-month-old baby. I mean, its an inspiration to see these two travel smoothly and easily with their little daughter. A reminder that traveling with kids is totally possible.

Another interesting thing: for a while, we talked about food and eating in Argentina—they’re interested in making sure the food they start their daughter on is organic. It seems that most of the veggies and meat here are, just by mode of general farming practice, but we can’t be 100% sure. Anyway, then we talked about what kinds of food they eat in Switzerland and we were all talking about efforts to eat locally (though, in Switzerland, that includes France since “you can bike there!”). Sort of exciting to realize that efforts to eat locally and organically is an international effort.

spanish-spanish dictionaries

I remember the first time E. bought her Spanish dictionary. During our senior year of college, E. explained to me that she needed a Spanish dictionary. I didn’t get it—kept pointing to the many Spanish-English dictionaries on her bookshelf. No, no, she patiently explained, I need a real Spanish dictionary—one that gives the definitions in Spanish. Of course, I finally realized, of course she needs that.

Last week, my teacher suggested I buy a Spanish-Spanish dictionary to help build my vocabulary. A very basic one, she recommended. So yesterday I bought what appears to be a maybe middle school level Spanish-Spanish dictionary so that G. can have our Spanish-English dictionary. 

Shew! Vamos a ver!

the european union

One of the neat things about being a traveler here in Argentina really is meeting people from all over the world. A few weeks ago, I met this great couple who, I think, may be the symbol of the changing face of Europe. She’s from Poland, he’s from Italy, and they live and work in Ireland. Their relationship happens mostly in English because he doesn’t speak Polish and she only eeks by in Italian. But they both speak French and English and, now, Spanish. And then there was this couple from Switzerland—though he’s from the French part and she’s from the Italian part. For a while, their relationship was all in English. And then they realized that it was stupid to do their relationship in English when no one around them really speaks English. So now they speak French Mondays to Wednesdays, Italian Thursdays through Saturdays and English on Sundays (or something along those lines). I mean, I know its silly to be amazed by the multi-lingual nature of Europe, but really…incredible.

spanish voices, english voices

Okay, so here’s a funny thing. I spent the last four weeks in a Spanish class with this kid from Seattle. Mostly, we spoke all in Spanish. But then he came over to watch the McCain-Obama debate on Friday night and we spoke all in English. It was so funny to hear his voice in English—sounded totally different to me than his Spanish voice. The same thing is funny to me when the people who work at Instituto Intercultural switch over to English—like it’s a totally different voice, utilizing different vocal chords even. 

Is that even possible?

politically correct english

American television is a big deal here in Argentina. G had a Spanish teacher one week who spoke clear, nearly unaccented American English. G assumed he’d spent significant time in the U.S. Nope, just a month. And a lot of Hollywood movies on t.v. Whoa.

So every once in a while my English class has funny questions about English in the U.S. Like, hat does it mean when people say “Hey gang” or why does my client have a hard time saying my name, Horacio? But last week they asked me about the N word…when is it okay to use it? Can we use it like we use Black or African American?

I’m not 100% sure where they first heard the N word…rap music? Movies? Television? Wherever; they all knew it.

I mean, how to explain why they can never use it? Never. I tried to be clearly emphatic, encouraged them to use African American or even Black, but never the N word. I stopped the whole class to explain the connotations of this word. Most of the people in the class have my skin tone, some a bit darker, some a bit lighter. In the U.S., people’d assume they are White.

But I don’t know enough history of Argentina; I didn’t know what to compare it to. How to explain that Black people can use this word, but White people never?

This is the thing about language—the more and more I learn about Spanish and about teaching English, it’s cultural. G is always talking about language is the basis of philosophy…and its more and more true to me. But how do I talk about that in an “English for Business Basics” class?

chilean independence day

Last Friday was Chile’s 4th of July! Which really means that the streets of Mendoza were flooded with Chilenos celebrating. At first it seemed funny to me that Chileans would come to Argentina to celebrate—especially b/c there is some mostly friendly competition between the two countries (especially when it comes to soccer!). But then someone reminded me that Argentina is cheaper than Chile—the Chilean peso is stronger than the Argentinean peso. And, heck, Mendoza has a Plaza de Chilen en el centro de la ciudad. So, the Chileans camped out there all weekend.

I stopped by for a while yesterday. I’d heard the Chilean Spanish is so fast that Argentineans have a hard time understanding their neighbors. So I wandered around the square trying to spy on conversations. There is definitely a different accent…I didn’t notice any “j”s and it seemed generally to be a rougher sound. But faster? Ah, it’s all fast to me. I can’t tell yet.

primavera!

The first day of Spring is a big deal here in Mendoza. Everyone flocks to the park or to their asados or to family’s homes. It’s a nice big family day here. And, fantastically, after two or three lousy weather days, we have a beautiful sunny day on the first day of Spring…so lovely. Smells good. Like a lovely Fall day in the Midwest.

One of the only mistakes in our plan for this trip is that we’re missing Fall in the Northern Hemisphere. And Fall in Alaska sucked—rain rain rain. So, really, this is the second year without a good o’ fashioned Midwestern (or even Northwestern) Fall. Not surprisingly, I’m craving a real Fall and will definitely savor Fall 2009! Is the grass always greener?

half my life

Okay, check this reality. I realized this week that I first started learning Spanish when I was in 9th grade—when I was 14. That means that I have been on-and-off learning Spanish for HALF of my life. HALF!? I mean, it’s sort of embarrassing to think about how bad my Spanish is when I realize I’ve almost lived longer with Spanish in my life than without it. Sheesh.

food...ah, food

Empanadas, my friends. Empanadas con carne. Three words I love saying in Spanish.

So here’s the thing. I have been a steady vegetarian for almost ten years. Ten years. And I love being a vegetarian. This diet has taught me to enjoy the vegetables I didn’t grow up enjoying and made me slightly more adventurous in the meal department. And Greg’s cooking has grown with the challenge of cooking vegetarian-style!

But something is going on with me. This summer, I really got into eating the fish in Alaska—something I felt good about, in part because it was fish Greg caught within a mile of our house in some of the cleanest waters in the U.S.

For some reason, being in meat-loving Western Argentina has re-introduced me to meat. My first foray was when our landlord offered us some empanadas con carne. Oh, friends, these are DELICIOUS. I’ve tried ham & cheese ones and even the vegetarian version. But nothing even compares to the hamburger ones.

Oh, they’re the junk food of Argentina, so it shouldn’t be surprising at all that I love them.

But last night I crossed a different threshold. New friends invited us to an asado—a uniquely fantastic barbecue (slightly remniscent of those grand barbecues in South Africa [sidebar: what were those called?]). The guy was excited about this piece of beef he bought at the local butcher and I sort of went along with it, assuming they’d have a little something on the side for a vegetarian. But! When it came time to eat, I helped myself to a piece of the meat. And, friends, I really enjoyed. Even had a little second helping.

David Sedaris recently wrote a book about moving to Japan in order to help himself stop smoking. His rationale was simple: new patterns, new country means old habits will be easier to kick. Now, I’m in no way interesting in “kicking” my vegetarian habit, but I am startled to realize how easy it has been to fall into an occassional meat-eating habit.

spanish infrecuencies

The other day I actually understood a solid five minutes on the tv! I mean, sure, it would have been better if I could have done more than read the flashing headlines about Freddy & Frannie Mac or if I could have understood what those kids in Buenos Aires were protesting or why Brazil & Argentina are trying to create a common currency, but a kids’ cartoon program is as good a start as any!

And then they switched to an adult program, complete with conversations rapidísimos, and Spanish became like waves in the ocean, punctuated by the occasional recognizable word.

I’m also noticing that I can understand more and more of what people are saying to me, but it is not really matched by my ability to respond. Is it natural that I understand more before I can speak? Makes me feel dumb.

Poco a poco, friends.

friends with 50-something women

A friend of mine once told me that I think about age the way that people in Southern California think about weight. She was maybe kidding a little bit, but in the two years since, I can’t help but wonder if she’s accurate. I do sort of use age to categorize, make assumptions about, put people into a box that helps me feel like I understand them.

So here’s what’s interesting. A year ago, I had just started my first salaried job and was just learning the art of becoming friends and intimate co-workers with 50-something women .The wide majority of the people I worked with in Alaska were 50-something women. Women who taught for years, retired, and wanted back in the education game. Women who used to work for the democratic Lt. Governor and had to look elsewhere for work when Palin was elected. Women who write poetry and books. At first, I was hesitant and intimidated to be working side-by-side with these women. But they did more than take me under their wings, they made sure I knew the course myself. In fact, one of my closer friends in Juneau ended up being one of those 50-something women.

And last night, Greg & I made friends with a 50-something ex-pat couple who go to the Spanish school. I’m shockingly decent at keeping up an intelligent conversation with 50-something women now. And enjoying myself while doing it, rather than feeling like the age difference makes us OTHER from each other.

I am indebted to Juneau. I just had to come to the other side of the Western Hemisphere to realize it.

logistics

Yesterday, we re-upped our month-to-month rental agreement with our landlord. So we’ll definitely be in Mendoza until October 23. It feels oddly good to be this sort of settled. I feel like I’m learning Spanish slowly and without the pressure of, “Oh my gawd, I only have three days left to learn as much as possible!!” So that is nice.

We’re thinking about heading South in November. I need to write PhD applications (due roughly December 15) and I think a quiet small town might be good for that. If anyone knows of great small towns in Western Argentina (think: Lake region? Something near San Martin de los Andes, but less touristy?), let me know!

estamos cerca

G & I are closing in on one year of marriage this week. One year. I am sort of startled its only been one year. Should I feel like its gone really fast because its been so great? Well, there have definitely been great parts, but its also been a hard year. I feel like part of what is going on here in Argentina is a slow healing of the parts of each other we have beaten up over the last year and a half. I catch Greg looking at me with a new something in his face—sincerity? Interest? Wholeness? And I know every once in a while my eyes happily catch something he does with a new appreciation for the man I fell in love with four years ago.

Maybe it’s being in Argentina. Maybe its speaking Spanish. I realized I was in love with Greg when I went to Guatemala four years ago. Is it being out of Juneau? Could it really be the sun? That feels superficial, on one hand, but healthy, on another. To remember that we are linked with the eco-system seems healthy.

We are breaking old patterns, slowly digging ourselves out of our finely-honed ruts. We are seeing each other with new light and it feels invigorating. Life-saving.

sra. gross

So I’ve been thinking a lot about my high school Spanish teacher these days. It strikes me that, really, what she taught me remains at the base of my ability to get around here. Even when my teachers here in Mendoza review grammar rules with me, I remember that Sra. taught me these first. And even though I have forgotten them through disuse, they remain a part of the deep recesses of my knowledge base.

Greg thinks its either remarkable or crazy that I am still relying, for the most part, on high school Spanish. Yes, of course, I took Spanish in college, but I think maybe I shouldn’t have been placed in the lit class or I never should have stopped taking the classes. Either way, I only remember reading Jorge Borges in that class (which is actually a great thing to remember, since Borges was from Argentina!).

I am excited to surpass my high school knowledge of Spanish—and starting to use the subjunctive is the first step toward doing so! But I have also been thinking about how many people from my high school class have gone on to spend their lives using Spanish—one friend of mine spent a Rotary year in Mexico and then married a man from Mexico. Another uses Spanish in her work as a doctor. And another spent time in Argentina after high school and I can only assume he still uses it. Sort of amazing how Sra. Gross, a teacher in a small town in South Dakota, grounded so many students in an appreciation for speaking a foreign language.

my first class

Since I was eighteen, I have been back and forth about being a teacher. In the last ten years, I have managed to enroll in and then quit TWO teacher-prep programs. And over the last year in Alaska, I worked with so many teachers and students, a lot of people just assumed I was a teacher…and I sort of let them, but my heart wasn’t in it. I quit my job in Juneau because it didn’t feed my soul like I want my work to do.

But it seems I can’t quite get away from teaching. Despite my lack of training, I am the new ESL teacher for a group of eleven or twelve students and Belatrix, a software development company in a suburb of Mendoza. The challenge is real and I am enjoying it so far. They are eager students with many clients in Utah (why Utah? I’m not sure yet…).

It’s an interesting thing to teach something I know so intimately as my own language. Teaching people how to use English proficiently makes me feel differently about the language. The act of instructing the “how tos” English makes it seem somehow outside of me, like it is somehow not quite my own. As if I have to somehow pull it out of my being to be able to look at it and talk about it. And if I forget to do that, I can’t see it quite right and can’t teach it, can only use it and say things like “that’ just how it is.”

Does that make any sense?

Words, languages, communication. These things are consuming my life.

i'm not in guatemala

Okay. Let me just say that South America is NOT Central America. I know, I know. What a ridiculous thing to have to say. But for some reason I imagine Argentina as mas or menos lo miso como Guatemala. But this is not Guatemala. I love Guatemala and look forward to returning sometime in the future. But one of the scariest things about Guatemala, for me, were the buses. Winding around twisty roads as I traveled from Guatemala City, over to the East Coast and up to Flores, I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best as my body rocked and rolled around the seat I shared with one or two other people.

The buses in Argentina and Chile are not the same. These are some swanky traveling machines! And I am pretty sure that I haven’t just stumbled into the more expensive touristy version—there are lots of “Mendocinos” riding with me. It’s an enjoyable breeze to travel around here. Wahoo!

lichen in the desert

Last Saturday, we went on this random hike in the high desert outside Mendoza. A small group of students from the school jumped on the bus in the morning headed to Petrerillos, a little town about an hour into the mountains from Mendoza. We didn’t exactly find a hiking path and ended up spending most of our hiking time eating lunch on this massive rock.

The land is red red red here. My shows are still tinted red from wandering around this desert. For miles and miles, all we could see were mountain peaks, many covered in snow.

At one point, I found a rock that had some lichen growing on it. Years and years ago, C. taught me about the miracle that lichen is. She taught me to be careful not to disturb it since it takes years to grow. In the rainforest of my home in Alaska, lichen covers the land like carpet, so I grew careless with the miracle. Wandering around this desert of Argentina, I was reminded of it’s miraculousness. There, in the middle of dry scrub and dry rivers, lichen struggled to make its home on the sides of rocks.

Sometimes I am amazed by how life on earth can scrape out an existence.

time warp

Last night, our new friend Bruce asked us how long we’ve been in the country. I quickly (and slightly triumphantly) replied, two weeks tomorrow! Greg paused and said, no, I think it’s only been nine or ten days. And he’s right. We arrived in Mendoza two weeks ago this coming Tuesday. Wow. I could have sworn it’s been closer to three weeks or even a month.

I think the time warp is simply because life in Juneau had become pretty predictable—the days were flying by at the end. I knew the rhythms (and the language, for God’s sake!) and had a plan for each day. Here, everyday is a surprise. What verb tense am I going to learn in my class? How will I communicate with someone I sit next to on the bus? Where can I buy a newspaper? Why can’t I learn new words when people tell them to me; why do I need to see them to remember them?

And it’s a beautiful thing, really, this change of pace. I find myself breathing deeply and enjoying moments with my husband. I hear Spanish words I didn’t remember I knew coming out of my mouth. I am slowly remembering the grammar rules for the past imperfect and the ever-torturing subjunctive. I am slowly finding patience with myself...rather than being disappointed with how hard the communication still is. Poco a poco, I tell myself. Slowly, I am starting to believe it.

learning

The accent of the Spanish here is incredibly difficult for me. Maybe because I foolishly thought my language skills would pick up where I left them in Guatemala. Or maybe because Greg can’t speak a word, I feel pressure to be fluent for both of us. Or, really, the accent is like a lisped version of the Spanish I’ve heard before…Castellano, to be more accurate, is the language.

Amid my stumbling, I did manage to secure an apartment for us. What a rush! Conducting business in Spanish, signing a contract for one month, making sure both Greg & I understand the rules of the agreement. Shew! The gentleman who owns the apartment was, of course, very generous to me—spoke very slowly and used simple words. We are both really happy to be out of the hostel world. It’s a good thing, but we aren’t really clubbers and we’re more interested in finding a rhythm and a semblance of a life here than bouncing from one amazing place to the next.

So we’re starting here. We start Spanish classes on Monday. Greg is really looking forward to it, as am I. Somehow, I managed to forget my English-Spanish dictionary, so have a sparkly, new one.

And I taught my first English class on Saturday.—I substituted for a woman who had to be in Buenos Aires for the day. FOUR HOURS! Shew. Thank God for textbooks!

a late-coming addition

and here is greg's blog (se llama, "blogorito")...as always, a compliment to mine: www.barbegazie.com.

includes a picture of our new apartment.

arrival!

well! we made it. we have arrived in mendoza and are basking in the sun. it is the middle/end of winter here, but the short days are sunny and warm. our moods are swinging up and being reminded of balance.

we arrived in santiago, chile last sunday, to quickly learn that the mountain pass over to mendoza was closed--so there was no bus riding that day. we bunked into a hostel that happened to be across the street, chatting with the skiers from Spain and the traveling girls from Germany.

the next day, the pass opened and we crossed without hassle.

here's a funny thing about visiting chile: we had to pay a "reciprocity" fee upon landing. and now, for the LIFE of our passports, we can come to chile without paying again. interesting.

the drive over the andes was nothing short of incredible. i kept trying to think of places it reminded me of, but I couldn’t think of any. It was absolutely outside of my realm of experiences. On the Chilean side, it looked a little like the low scrub brush of eastern Oregon, but with more trees and greener. The steep-steepness of the andes was astounding—and I’m just glad I wasn’t driving our bus (or at all, for that matter. We passed through this ski area that goes right over the road! At the pass, we had to wait around outside to first leave chile and then enter argentina. I think that means that for at least 30 minutes we were literally in no country at all.

The landscape shifted quickly after we entered argentina—less snow immediately and the land we could see was this startling red. The first time I drove south on 95 from Maryland to North Carolina, I was amazed by the red land, but it was nothing like this. The semi-scrub of Eastern Oregon returned, but this time without the trees.

Driving into Mendoza, we spotted a Wal-Mart Supercenter on our left. Wow.

beginning...

(and old post that I am just posting now)

I’m at the airport in Los Angeles. The airport. All around me, languages fly and my white skin makes me a minority. And so it begins. The languages flow over my body, into and around my ears. It feels like a blanket or a set of headphones—all encompassing and oddly comfortable.

The Spanish piques my ear, but I have to focus all of my attention to understand half of it. That is both petrifiying and exciting. I wonder how much I’ll be able to understand five months from now.

I feel sort of numb…like I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing, but I’m not exactly unsure, either.

denver

ah, i've had a glorious last few days.  water-skiing, soaking up the sun, relaxing at the lake.  the last week in watertown has been a salve to my juneau-weary weather sensibilities. my skin has regained a summer hue and my spirits are high.  

i'm not doubting out decision to leave alaska anymore.  

so juneau was a good place.  on a sunny day, there is no better place on the planet.  i made a couple nice friends and was actually sad to say good-bye at work and to rachel & steve.  all the while, i was doubting myself and this move, not sure that bad weather should be a reason to leave some place where g&i had good jobs, nice people, and plenty of snowboarding.  

one week into the sunshine, i'm far more confident. even if things go bust in argentina, its good to be "Down South," as we called the lower 48 in juneau.

here's the low-down on the plan: g & i are headed back to seattle tonight & then we're going to roadtrip to san francisco to check out some schools (& its looking like, see nate!) and see how we like the bay area. and then we leave for argentina on the 16th.  actually, we fly into chile & will bus over the andes. we've connected with a school there to teach some english in exchange for spanish language courses.  we're going to base ourselves out of mendoza for the start.  an up & coming wine region!

more to come as we embark on this adventure!

vamos aprender espanol en argentina

so, it's for real.  greg & i are headed to argentina.  we've quit our jobs, cleaned the apartment, shipped our stuff (literally, a TON; 2,000+ lbs.  wow.), and flown to beautifully humid & sunny sodak.

we're here for a some time with the fam and some long-anticipated water-skiing!!  wahoo! and then we're off to seattle for a couple days and then leave for argentina mid-month.

at which point, i'll change the title of this blog to the oh-so-creative "kate goes to argentina":).

i think we both leave alaska with mixed emotions.  g loved the fishing and the mountains.  i feel incredibly lucky to have seen such remote parts of alaska and value a couple new friendships and had a wonderful snowboarding season.  but its too much rain and i find myself relieved not to have to make it through another summer here.  its not the alaska winter, it's the southeast alaska summer--no reprieve from the rain.

i feel like i'm betraying my midwestern roots by hating the weather so much.  where is my ability to make the most of cruddy weather?  to not be scared indoors?  to tool around outside, ever-optimistic about the weather? 

well friends, betrayal or not, i'm done with this weather.  long live sunny summers!!

cleaning up after ourselves.

I did it. I scrubbed my favorite apartment ever down from floor to ceiling. I think I only cried once. I found corners and dustbunnies I had no idea existed. I swept wood floors more times than I want to admit. I showered without a shower curtain in order to scrub more thoroughly. I crawled under the bed cubby and ran out of paper towels half-way through the windows and mirrors. Oh well, can’t be perfect.

It started on Tuesday, in full force. Sure, before that, Greg had done some work on the floors and cabinents—and, thankfully, all of our stuff was already headed South on Alaska Marine Lines. But seriously. It was up to me to bring home that security deposit, a final lynchpin in our plans. It was like stumbling around a spooky fun house. Everywhere I looked there seemed be a monstrous project. Where to begin? The wood floors? The bathroom? The freezer (what is in that yogurt container?) or fridge?

And just when I’d start to feel like I had it under control, I’d find something else—the junk drawer full of tools, the wood stove I’d completely forgotten would need a thorough clean, soot and all.

At one point, one of the new neighbors from Florida actually offered to help me. I must have looked pathetic. And the next day the other neighbor asked me if cleaning really is a full time job? He meant it as kind chit-chat, but it felt like a scathing attack on my inability to finish this project.

transitions (1st in a brief series).

I resigned from my job the other day. It was surprisingly painful. Shockingly difficult.

And now I wonder if everyone should quit a job here and again—I am amazed by how much more appreciated I feel after I resigned.

Or is that I feel free of this place? No longer burdened by the responsibility of it? The charge to promote this thing I’m not 100% convinced of? To pretend that I feel like we do really good, thorough work? Or that I have done good, thorough work?

It’s a good place, the Association. Good people. Good ideas. Good intentions. In fact, they might be the definition of that over-used word, “good.”

But it’s not for me. It’s too hard for me to be so far away from where we work. Juneau is miles and miles and cultures and cultures away from where and how we, ideally, work. I think I want to be more local than this state-wide organization.

Local. Location. Loca.

I told my co-worker the other day that one of the hardest things about work here over the last year has been how disconnected I feel from the communities where we work. We’re about community engagement, but I’m still not sure how meaningful it is for us to travel to the Bush for 2-3 days and call it community engagement.

It was a funny conversation with my co-worker because she really likes that we go in, deliver a message, and leave. She feels like it keeps her so much cleaner than if she were to launch a community engagement effort out her own backdoor. And I hear her; it certainly is nice to visit a place, talk, and see things happen because you trained someone or reminded someone of how much they really do matter in the life of a kid.

So maybe its not so much that I prefer the messiness to Bridget’s cleanliness; but rather that I want to be in the thick of it—I want to be that person being trained, reminded.

In college, I used to think that I could do this; I could work without knowing the impact of my work. That instinct steered me from direct service into the world of community development—somehow I managed to fool myself into thinking I wasn’t doing direct service because I wasn’t feeding someone or bandaging an arm. But, really, I love getting my hands dirty organizing people into projects, efforts, organizations. I love trying to sort through people’s worldviews and ideas to create a joint effort.

It’s just a different version of direct.

proud of csb

oh!  i just received this quarter's installment of "St. Benedict's" and feel a rush of pride at the ol' alma mater.  the new (is she still new?  i guess, to me, she is) president's introductory letter is all about the importance of wrestling with controversial questions.  and she is careful to assert that st. ben's is the type of place where controversial questions must be asked. she even goes so far as to propose a few guidelines for engaging.  wow!  what a fantastic thing to read.    

i just don't feel like the former prez. would have written an article like that.

i wonder what the vibe is on campus.  or is she dreaming? oh, i hope she's reflecting reality.

its a funny thing, alma maters. why do i feel like i get a vote in how the institution runs?  i feel happy that they ask grads for our input as they go up for the accreditation.  i feel happy to read about my peers who have gotten promotions or kids or hitched.  i feel happy that i went to st. ben's.  

ah, the afterglow!

the wailin' jennys

okay, so its a little gross to admit this, but i think i have become a prototype of what pandora.com must sell to advertisers.  

after several months of enjoying this "music genome project," i realized i kept coming back to songs by the trio, "wailin' jennys."  so, in a moment of interesting weakness, i bought the entire album, "40 days" on my itunes.  it's lovely music, really.  calming and grounding.  and strong women making beautiful harmonies.  i just like them. 

it has been raining since july 4 here.  with an average temperature of 58 degrees.  i keep forgetting it's july.perhaps its the weather that makes the wailin' jennys sounds so good!

they'll be in st. cloud on the 31st and grand rapids on the 1st. 

it's greg. fishing. in the channel

i have been meaning to post this one for a while, but forgot! i was in boston at the time.  i think a particularly funny line is when rachel says "your wife will be so proud!"

me. flying a kite. on north douglas.

check it:

4th of july in juneau.

ah, the 4th of july.  i never quite know what to do with this holiday.  jump for joy? cry?  huddle in a hole? cheer at the parade?  it's just kind of a baffling holiday...a mingling of sadness and joy for all this country is/could be.

in juneau, this holiday is blown way out of proportion because it's one of two days the miner's had off back in the early white days (the other was christmas).  so the festivities started last night with $30,000 worth of fireworks and people jammed up at the pier.  and its hard not to get caught up in the excited and enthusiasm of thousands of my fellow citizens cheering. so i cheered!

and today we're going to go fishing & maybe catch the sand castle contest over on douglas island...and maybe the soapbox derby.  families hanging together, outside. that is good.

meanwhile, at the local blockbuster video store, they are collecting used dvds to send to the troops in iraq.  

happy 4th of july.

pictures!

Ah, pictures.  Gotta love 'em. 

I just learned how to use picasa...how great. 

here are all of them: www.picasaweb.google.com/kate.dugan8/Ireland

enjoy!  for a usually no-photo gal, I sure did snap a lot:).  one of the funny highlights were the street signs that leave little room for imagination.  indeed, we enjoyed the thrill of coasting down a near-shoulderless road after we passed this one.

coming home

it's a funny thing, coming home.  there is a surprising familiarity to this place, this place in alaska i had months ago decided felt too foreign to ever be home.  and yet.  i find myself savoring this sunny day, happily folding laundry, sitting slowly on the steps to read a book in the air that smells of lilacs.  i am surprised to feel an odd sense of contentment here.

where did it come from?  is it only in the going away that i feel it?  does that mean its very real or very false?  or is it just about this moment in time?  

i have oodles of pictures to post to this languished blog.  10 days in ireland were a blast.  one thought is here: www.youngadultcatholics-blog.com (the post called "st. bridget"...that's right, i'm a blogger for young adult catholics.  every other friday.  stay tuned!).  i will post them soon.

for now, greg just arrived home with oodles of crabs from the crabpots on north douglas.  yum!

summer.  its summer. even in juneau, it comes.  i think i forgot.

boston. and john cougar mellencamp.

so i'm in boston for the week and it seems like there should be so much to blog about, so many things.  i mean, this is the metro area where i first started this unyieldy thing in the first place.  i am stunned to realize my lack of nostalgia for this place.  yesterday, i strolled through my old stomping grounds on harvard square and the yard and felt no yearning to return.  i have yet to step foot on the div school, so maybe there...but it's weird.  the lack of emotion i have bound up here.  

i have such mixed emotions about my two years at harvard. i mean, on one hand, i discovered and named a love of american religion.  its a curiosity that carries me through newspaper headlines and makes me nag at greg to hook me up as a religion stringer at the empire.  but it's also this place that, in some ways, ate at my soul. as i slowly gain back some of the weight i lost in this place and find a rhythm that is not rife with stomach aches and stress, i do not miss that part of the person i became here. 

maybe its because the part of harvard that i liked continues to be a real part of my life--work with jen on the book continues, even a real-live thing these days (not just in our fervent emails!) and i use what i learned about religious pluralism in america all the time.  

and it is weird to visit a place where so many of the people i knew here have left, moved on, switched gears.  i had a happy dinner with amy & eric tonight--and even though they still live in the same apartment, all is different (as it should be!).  our conversations were about nonprofit management and the oddities of being late 20-somethings and early 30-somethings; not the paper or book of the week.

as my eyes droop toward sleep, i can't help but think of my wedding song--john cougar mellencamp's "small town." particularly these lyrics: "still care enough to see who's in the big town...but my bed is in a small town. oh, that's good enough for me."

hey california

such a great song by catie curtis! long live pandora!

I'm gonna turn the heat up in the house
I'm gonna get you to lie down with me baby
Let the sun shine underneath the clouds

The ground below us is frozen
And the snow, well it keeps on coming down
I'll build a tunnel to your skin, if you let me in
We'll make a fire right inside the house

Hey California, we're cold as hell
But we got ways to entertain ourselves

In December we pretend that we're moving
We point out places on the map
We look at houses online, we read the L.A. Times
We go out in to the snow and laugh

And when you go to California
They want to know why you'd live back East
When the weather there is cold and the people there are cold
I say the people are why I'll never leave

Hey California, we're cold as hell
But we got ways to entertain ourselves
Hey California, when you watch us freeze
Please don't talk about those lemon trees
Hey California just one more thing
I'm about to get my mind blown by spring

cruise ships return

cruise ships return to juneau--wow.  i forgot what a circus downtown can be when the popcorn is going, the old folks are a hazard to drivers, and all the closed up businesses are open for sales.  

so, anyway.  its a zoo down there. even the smell of sweet sugar lingers on the streets.  everyone is carrying these bright red "the alaska t-shirt store" bags. the tour buses have renewed their route on my running route along basin road.  shew.  and the view from our apartment is markedly different.  gone is the open channel and here is the moving city.  

i wonder where they are getting electricity from.  are they paying the same rates we are?  hope they're paying more:)!

sunny today!  those touristas got a good one!

classroom management

have been meaning to post this for a long time.  

h. has this sign posted above her classroom pencil sharpener. 

makes me laugh every time i look at it. i had it as my desktop background for a while there.

avalanche & power lines

things have gotten a little crazy here in juneau. spring is prime avalanche season in town and this year the drama is quite personal--for all of us. ten days ago, an avalanche knocked down one of main hydro-electric power lines. the line is high above line and difficult, apparently, to maintain.  so the ENTIRE city--around 30,000 people--is now being powered by diesel.  

that's right.  diesel.

i'm kind of surprised a cloud of exhaust hasn't started to hover over town.  but it also means the rate of energy has jumped 447%.  

needless to say, we are no longer drying clothes or thoughtlessly leaving lights on.  we unplug everything and turn the water heater off.  the fridge is at the lowest setting.  

but its not just us.  amazingly, the entire town dropped its usage by 20% in the first few days after the disaster.  the town is sold out of clothespins and drying racks.  fred meyer's has every-other-light turned off.  the public library switched off its "express elevator." the mayor turned off the time & temp sign downtown. 

its incredibly hopeful to me.  all of us pitching in is actually making a significant difference.  we're doing all these things that we should have been doing anyway...but the money is the motivator.  and while that's kind of gross, it is incredible how the town is really working together to reduce usage.  

(photo from the juneau empire)

april foolin' sketchy

seriously.  the ability to change the time on an email sent?  

gotta love april fool's!

whoa

seriously. mark this day.  i have never seen juneau's forecast look like this.

NO days with rain??!?  what?  

FIVE days with sun?!?!  

hmm...wonder if blogging about it jinxes it.

i did it!

(drum roll please....)

that's right, ladies & gentlemen.  tonight i started the first ever fire i have ever started on my own.  yes!!  i think i helped plenty of 5th grade boys & girls do this at camp one summer, but it always seemed like my directions helped them do a much better job than i ever did! 

and let me just tell you, the picture does not do this beauty justice.

(and yes, greg is out of town:).  when did i become such a stereotype!?)

thank you

between heather and chris, i have been introduced to "the 'blog' of 'unnecessary' quotation marks."  

sometimes its actually painful to read too much of at once.  

i recommend: read in small doses.

dillingham: redux & some time warp

so check it.  i get to go back to dillingham tomorrow.  its a much shorter trip (just sunday-tuesday) and there won't be any winter camping on the tundra, but i still get to stay with the hoopers & maybe catch a rousing game of "settlers of catan!" wahoo!

its been a blast to be able to travel all over alaska.  but i do sort of feel like all that travel in january & february made me feel like the cut & paste feature on my computer.  like, i can't really believe its the end of march in juneau.  the snow is mostly gone from downtown--what?!?!  and i feel like its still the middle of winter. feels like my birthday should be right around the corner instead already a month in the past.

its like i entered a time-warp in bush alaska.  which, i guess, may be an entirely appropriate way to feel out there.  its a different world; different than anything i've ever known or visited (sidenote: i love the distinction in spanish between conocer and saber.  in this case, both apply). people are kind and warm, but know i am an Outsider.  they welcome me into their lives, but we only talk about school and kids and the village--public domain things.  i guess that's how it should be. but it feels nonetheless isolating--like i've been cut& paste into a world that doesn't know me while the world i do know ticks on. 

a reference

see my recent commentary on easter triduum here.

st. paddy's day!

so!  in celebration of st. patrick's day (not really...), my sister kelly & i bought our plane tickets to Shannon, Ireland. we're going to spend 10 days on the west coast, biking around, checking out the aran islands, exploring the land of our ancient ancestors.  

kelly feels confident we'll blend in...hmmm...

i'm excited to have a fun plan on the horizon.  trip planning.  gotta love it.

rainy day

it's totally a rainy day here in juneau.  rainy rainy. 

it makes my whole body slow down.  my legs, my fingers, my brain.  its like the water seeps into my whole being and makes me chug.  

rain doesn't always make me feel like this, so its funny when it does.  sometimes it energizes me and makes me feel like i can take on the world.  other times it feels like i can sustain in it so easily because rainy-ness asks so little of me. and then other times, like today, it swells over me and all i can do is tread water.  

rain rain.  i guess that's why they call it a rainforest.

that's what i'm talking about!

check out this commentary in the new york times:

"the audacity of hopelessness."

i especially love this quote:

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

poetry

I was recently reminded, by katel, that i tend to think of myself as bad a poetry. something i am not always able to see the depth in. but then this blog by a nun that i really like referenced the below poem by mary oliver. during one of the first few months i spent in boston, i had the chance to hear mary read some of her poetry and talk a little bit about a collection that was being released at that time. it was just lovely. lovely.

she talked about these acres of woods she has behind her house. she wanders back there a lot (maybe she was wandering there when she wrote the below poem?). scattered throughout the trees, she has pencils stubbed in trees. just there. ready for her to have a good idea. because, she said, you have a good idea and it might leave you.

its this thing! where do good ideas come from? so often i feel like they come out of nowhere...like i can't trace them back to their origin. and if i don't write something down or don't take the time right then and there to think it through, it's going to leave me. this feeling like i have to grasp at an idea...like there really is no ownership over ideas.

Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver

dham bound

check it!  i head to dillingham the week of my birthday for work and get to stay a couple extra days to kick it with the hoopers of bristol bay.  wahoo!

so here's a funny thing about unalakleet.  i went back there this week for a community night--a chance to talk with folks about how adults can get involved in the lives of kids of their community.  so, i worked really hard to make sure i pronounced it correctly: un-a-la-kleet.  each syllable pronounced.  

but, of course, in unalakleet, its pronounced unle-kleet.  of course.  

even more complicatedly, in nearby st. michael and stebbins, its pronounced, un-a-la-kleet.  

ayay!  its all about local quirks.

on the road again on sunday--shishmaref, brevig mission & teller...assuming the weather goes my way from juneau:).

cold toes

hmmm...i'm sitting in my little apartment, toasty warm with the wood stove.  but it doesn't really seem to matter.  my toes just stay cold.  they are the last part of me warmed by snowboarding and even 2 layers of socks can't keep them warm tonight.  bummer.

in other news, this is me in unalakleet, ak.  its up by nome, in the crook of the seward peninsula.  my back is to the bering sea.

the bering sea!  good gawd, it was cool.

and cold. (note the puffy coat my mom gave me for christmas!)

and full of great people. i head back out that way next week--to st. lawrence island.  get out your google maps, folks!

a good alaska day

ah, a good day. g brought me coffee in bed. i snoozed with no particular place to be. and then i realized it was sunny outside.

so we rolled up the hill to go snowboarding.  it was warm enough that i didn't even have to wear my extra sweater layer.  we decided to hike out to a place called "west bowl." oh my.  gorgeous, spectacular scenery.  we could see mountains and mountains, endlessly. and we were on the other side of the island (douglas) than we started, looking across the inlet at admiralty island. maybe the most beautiful place i've ever been.

and the snow was powder; glorious, easy to turn in, suck me in and enjoy it all day long, snow.

after three hikes, i was pooped. so we went home & onto the grocery run.  we notice the traffic going the opposite way is stalled...not because of an accident, but because everyone had stopped to look at orca whales in the channel!  so we whipped the car around, ran down to the harbor, and watched them chase a seal.  

we unloaded groceries by the light of the full moon.  

all in all, a spectacular day to be in alaska.

2008.

really?  its 2008?  happily, 8 is more fun to write than 7, but sheesh.  2008.

i can remember being a teenager and how impossible it was to imagine being more than 21, 22 at most. and this is the year i'll turn 28.  

2007 was a good year, despite its rather ugly-looking ending number. its oh-so-cheesy to do a year in review, but i can't help myself.  it was a dramatic year for me.  there were the natural highlights: graduation, discovered a love of studying religion (catholicism) in america, marriage, move to alaska, new job (first salary!).  but then there were the nuances that life are really about...

• discovered breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream.  yum! poor body.
  
• discovered the fells way in medford, ma. beautiful trail...saving grace of living in the city.
  
• bought renters' insurance for the first time ever.
• renamed blog.
• discovered the gourds.  hope to visit austin soon.
• e-bayed for snowboard.
• learned to recycle without curbside pickup.
• learned how to make scones.
• traveled as far north and as far west as i ever have (delta junction/fairbanks, anchorage

and through it all? kept oregon drivers' license.  no kidding.