So I guess I still havent gotten over making fun of this quote, SPU's theme verse, oh wait it only exists in the SPU bible (jk). I am all for it but a year removed from the pep ralleys (phil dog's speaches) I dont really know what it means anymore(I am giving myself a lot of credit believing that I actually understood it when I was at spu, fish stories are the best, they are the only type of story that gets better everytime you tell it). So post graduation I think I have made a legitamate attempt at engaging the world (I know longer understand the idea of engaging culture, let alone "the culture". Everywhere I go people do things differently, and believe different things, to say the least that is a lot of culture. The funny, sad thing is I still like my culture the best, not necessarily the culture of the US, but the culture of the life I lived in the US. The beautiful thing about culture is that I think in a broad sense it is just as individual as everything esle the US. And you can take a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and always people who what to live or at least partake in one or more of the little pieces of culture that make up the overall culture of your life. So where does that leave me, now that I am more interested in creating culture, and less interested in changing the world. The world always changes but maybe culture sticks around. So maybe more or less the phrase should be engage the world, and change the culture, because in reality we can change people, and thats where change starts, change people, change the culture and maybe have an effect on the world.
haha, so where am I, oh somewhere between changing my culture and giving up and taking the easy road(become a doctor, find a wife, have family, live in the suburbs and call it good(not that there is anything wrong with this)). And I might be changing a few people here and there, because I do rub everyone, in one way or another, I am not the type of person who can get away with being invisible.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Blogs
I love reading blogs, everytime you read a blog at a minimum you learn something about the person writing. But sometimes I wonder is there really worth in learning small intimate details about people, people whom you may not have spoken with for years, people who you might speak with everyday. I do think life is about people, but I am just not quite sure what that means. Live today in the present, but live the in present within scope of eternity. Eternal purpose, daily purpose, what really is purpose. Living amoung a generation without religion, I get stuck asking that question way to often. I understand the beauty, simplicity and joy to befound in the small things in life. Money doesn't buy happiness, but is religous happiness just a veil for a deeper pain, a deeper struggle, an evolutionary struggle for life.
I appologize to anyone out there reading this, who is thinking I talked to Rob about this 8 years ago and he still hasnt gotten over the Marxist ideal that religion might just be an oppiate, or for those thinking that you have seen the arguements and are still head over heals in faith. Sometimes I think faith is like mariage, and then I utterly hope it is not. The first monthes, years, maybe decades are so simple, everything is new and exciting, but then all of the sudden that spark just is not quite there anymore, all of the sudden you realize, maybe emotion obscured you vission. Maybe this is as good as it gets.
At the young age of 23 I have had the opportunity to experience some of the most marvillous beauties of our world, I have lived a privledged life, never had a serious worry in my life, there have been "trials" but placed within the scope of the hurt I have also seen in the world I have been on a magic carpet ride long before Aladin ever stepped foot on his carpet.
Which brings me back to the question: Is this as good as it gets? And do I care if it gets better, because life is good, I have seen the status quo of my life in comparission with others, and selfishly or confidently or contently or mistakenly I am happy(those deceptive brain chemicals, I never see them coming).
The American ideal of progress which can either be argued was stolen from religion or stolen from Darwin, does not really impress me. For Darwin I am already too old, to be saved by evolution, and for Religion I am already saved. And this is the problem, I am easily satisfied, so the motivation to move past the point of being saved, if one can really ever move past that point, is well weak, and I have already given up on my evolution(if it has taken billion of years to get to me, then I will never witness the next step, the funny futile end of evolutionary thought, the quest to see something new, but the theory itself puts that chance, I think at a much lower level than the chances of their being a Creator). All of which may ultimately seem depressive and sadding, but with this realist perspective, I know I am happier than 85% and probably 98% of Americans, the only part that scares me is I am not sure I am happier that 50% of the people I have met outside of America who do not even start form a religous position of being saved or a belief in evolution(what do they believe in? nothing?).
And so I am stuck with two question: Are they really content, yes they want more, but are they okay with their status quo? and: Does it really matter, if their status quo (which I do think is more guilt free) might make me more sensuously happier, if I am already happy and content with my status quo? Is there anything ultimately more worthwhile than a continous feeling of contentment? If I claim to be content(which one might argue that just the fact I am claiming contentment, means I am not ultimately content) is it possible to be more conent?
Ciao.
I appologize to anyone out there reading this, who is thinking I talked to Rob about this 8 years ago and he still hasnt gotten over the Marxist ideal that religion might just be an oppiate, or for those thinking that you have seen the arguements and are still head over heals in faith. Sometimes I think faith is like mariage, and then I utterly hope it is not. The first monthes, years, maybe decades are so simple, everything is new and exciting, but then all of the sudden that spark just is not quite there anymore, all of the sudden you realize, maybe emotion obscured you vission. Maybe this is as good as it gets.
At the young age of 23 I have had the opportunity to experience some of the most marvillous beauties of our world, I have lived a privledged life, never had a serious worry in my life, there have been "trials" but placed within the scope of the hurt I have also seen in the world I have been on a magic carpet ride long before Aladin ever stepped foot on his carpet.
Which brings me back to the question: Is this as good as it gets? And do I care if it gets better, because life is good, I have seen the status quo of my life in comparission with others, and selfishly or confidently or contently or mistakenly I am happy(those deceptive brain chemicals, I never see them coming).
The American ideal of progress which can either be argued was stolen from religion or stolen from Darwin, does not really impress me. For Darwin I am already too old, to be saved by evolution, and for Religion I am already saved. And this is the problem, I am easily satisfied, so the motivation to move past the point of being saved, if one can really ever move past that point, is well weak, and I have already given up on my evolution(if it has taken billion of years to get to me, then I will never witness the next step, the funny futile end of evolutionary thought, the quest to see something new, but the theory itself puts that chance, I think at a much lower level than the chances of their being a Creator). All of which may ultimately seem depressive and sadding, but with this realist perspective, I know I am happier than 85% and probably 98% of Americans, the only part that scares me is I am not sure I am happier that 50% of the people I have met outside of America who do not even start form a religous position of being saved or a belief in evolution(what do they believe in? nothing?).
And so I am stuck with two question: Are they really content, yes they want more, but are they okay with their status quo? and: Does it really matter, if their status quo (which I do think is more guilt free) might make me more sensuously happier, if I am already happy and content with my status quo? Is there anything ultimately more worthwhile than a continous feeling of contentment? If I claim to be content(which one might argue that just the fact I am claiming contentment, means I am not ultimately content) is it possible to be more conent?
Ciao.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
The Constant Gardner
I watched the Constant Gardern for probably the 4th time last night, and I think for the first time I really started to understand one of the most important moments in the movie. When Justin and Tessa are on the way home from the hospital and Tessa asks to stop and pick up a family she knows lives 40km away and Justin says no we can't interfer with their lives. We cant help everyone of these people. To which Tessa responds well we can help these three. And Justin says no I have to put you first.
This part of the movie never really made me think till last night. After living for a month in what would be considered poverty in western standards and relative middle class to CR standards this part of the movie really makes you think hard.
Costa Rica a contry of beauty and of relative poverty when it comes to the average citizen has so much potential but has so far to go. Yet I have to question where is it really supposed to go? To what extent can I impose my life ideals on a situation that may have totally different ideals? maybe more on this too come....
I realize this seems like the standard realization people have when they go on mission trips and they see the poverty but also the happiness of the people, but trust me it is a little deeper than that this time. I'm not so concerned with how this changes my life or how I might live differently(because I am honest, I don't think it will change me that much), but how it might lead me to wiser solutions when problem solving or how it is teaching me to view the worlds problems through a different lense. Or redefine problems and solution, now that interests me a bit more.
This part of the movie never really made me think till last night. After living for a month in what would be considered poverty in western standards and relative middle class to CR standards this part of the movie really makes you think hard.
Costa Rica a contry of beauty and of relative poverty when it comes to the average citizen has so much potential but has so far to go. Yet I have to question where is it really supposed to go? To what extent can I impose my life ideals on a situation that may have totally different ideals? maybe more on this too come....
I realize this seems like the standard realization people have when they go on mission trips and they see the poverty but also the happiness of the people, but trust me it is a little deeper than that this time. I'm not so concerned with how this changes my life or how I might live differently(because I am honest, I don't think it will change me that much), but how it might lead me to wiser solutions when problem solving or how it is teaching me to view the worlds problems through a different lense. Or redefine problems and solution, now that interests me a bit more.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Me Sorprende
Things that interest me so far:
1) How much I like them music they play during the green light to cross the street on Ave Central.
2) How homogenous the population is, there is nowhere a tall white hombre doesn't stick out.
3) All of my spanish teachers write in cursive
4) Trust doctors trained at the public University, don't trust those trained at the private med schools, they are for less intellegent kids, whose parents have a lot of money.
5) How regulated the buses are, they all have virtual gates that count the number of people who get on the bus, and each complete route is timed and recorded.
6) How out there prostitution is, it is all over the place in San Jose.
7) How changing how I dress, causes people to react to me extremely differently
8) How depressing I find the lack of sanitation and waste management faclities (there aren't any!! at the beach your crap literally flows into the beach front water.)
9) How much I miss conversations in english.
10) That I'm the only forienger I have met who misses his cell phone, but then again maybe I am the only honest one, or the only one not running from parts of his past.
11) How many of the foriengers I meet or most of them (this is the low season for tourism) are mid 20's-early 30's and are only in Costa Rica because they have nothing else to do with their lives, no ambitions, no future goals, they are just kind of existing. Depressingly interesting to me.
12) How after a month I can still get sunburned by half an hour of mid day sun, skin cancer here I come.
13) How I my slightly off humor and strange openess easily crosses the language barier even when I can't communitcate via words. ( I mean who really spends his first class with a female teacher discussing birth control and breast feeding)
14) How thankful I am that facial expressions can tell more of the story than most people are willing to admit.
15) That I already have at least 5 new moms and 3 new older sisters. I guess I am strangely endearing, or maybe there is just something to my height and smile than makes me a fun son/ younger brother to the generally short population of women in Costa Rica.
well that's enough for now, one more week of escuela and then it is off to the beach for a couple weeks.
1) How much I like them music they play during the green light to cross the street on Ave Central.
2) How homogenous the population is, there is nowhere a tall white hombre doesn't stick out.
3) All of my spanish teachers write in cursive
4) Trust doctors trained at the public University, don't trust those trained at the private med schools, they are for less intellegent kids, whose parents have a lot of money.
5) How regulated the buses are, they all have virtual gates that count the number of people who get on the bus, and each complete route is timed and recorded.
6) How out there prostitution is, it is all over the place in San Jose.
7) How changing how I dress, causes people to react to me extremely differently
8) How depressing I find the lack of sanitation and waste management faclities (there aren't any!! at the beach your crap literally flows into the beach front water.)
9) How much I miss conversations in english.
10) That I'm the only forienger I have met who misses his cell phone, but then again maybe I am the only honest one, or the only one not running from parts of his past.
11) How many of the foriengers I meet or most of them (this is the low season for tourism) are mid 20's-early 30's and are only in Costa Rica because they have nothing else to do with their lives, no ambitions, no future goals, they are just kind of existing. Depressingly interesting to me.
12) How after a month I can still get sunburned by half an hour of mid day sun, skin cancer here I come.
13) How I my slightly off humor and strange openess easily crosses the language barier even when I can't communitcate via words. ( I mean who really spends his first class with a female teacher discussing birth control and breast feeding)
14) How thankful I am that facial expressions can tell more of the story than most people are willing to admit.
15) That I already have at least 5 new moms and 3 new older sisters. I guess I am strangely endearing, or maybe there is just something to my height and smile than makes me a fun son/ younger brother to the generally short population of women in Costa Rica.
well that's enough for now, one more week of escuela and then it is off to the beach for a couple weeks.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Costa Rica thus far
So I am now starting my third week in Costa Rica, and it feels like months since I have been in Seattle, a very strange feeling. Living in San Jose has and has not be what I expected. Or as my favorite spanish phrase has changed from "No entiendo" to "Entiendo...pero no entiendo".
On the weekdays I get up at around 6:20. Desayunar es a las sies y media, entonces tomo una ducha, me pongo la roba, doy mis libros and saligo para escuela. aka I eat, shower, dress and head to school. The bus that I catch is always full and in the morning it takes about 40 minutes to get to into the city center literally stopping every other street. The seats are way to close so I, and only I have to ackwardly put my legs in to the aisle which is full of standing people. not a big deal though.
School starts at 8, an hour of conversation and then three of grammer fun. Then it is off to hang out and people watch in San Jose before yo devuelvo. (go home) The bus ride home is ussually quicker and only about half full, aka more pleasent. More than likely I am forced on to the bus do to the afternoon rain shower that happens just about daily between 2:30 and 5.
I live in a barrio just outside the capital, houses are no bigger than they need be, every block is a continous fence with the houses behind them of course, the sewage runs down the side of the street at least to some extent, quickly flowing underneath the streets though. Garbage is everywhere outside the house but inside is probalby more sterile than most american hospitals.
the people are warm and friendly for the most part, I have only been yelled at once and made fun of a few times, although I did not let them know I knew what they were saying so I think the joke is kind of on them.
As long as I do not speak in english, people assume I am from europe. As they say I am too tall and too skinny to be an american (I guess that is okay with me).
I play basketball twice a week where the next tallest person ussually comes to about my shoulders. The costa ricans find it quite humorous.
On the weekends its time for the beach. Get up early on Saturday morning to catch the 6 or 7 oclock bus to the beach of your choice 3 to 5 hours away. Spend the night and return the next day. The beaches a quite impressive, but the rainforest may be equally if not more impressive.
Sadly though the towns surrounding the beachs are quite the stark contrast, dirty does not ussually begin to explain it and the more popular CR becomes the more filth abounds and the more spills into the water destroying CRs beauty.
Well that is enough for one post, but in my next post, I will have to get to what has suprised me, and all the strage parts of my personality that are being tested and put on display via living in Costa Rica.
Ciao,
On the weekdays I get up at around 6:20. Desayunar es a las sies y media, entonces tomo una ducha, me pongo la roba, doy mis libros and saligo para escuela. aka I eat, shower, dress and head to school. The bus that I catch is always full and in the morning it takes about 40 minutes to get to into the city center literally stopping every other street. The seats are way to close so I, and only I have to ackwardly put my legs in to the aisle which is full of standing people. not a big deal though.
School starts at 8, an hour of conversation and then three of grammer fun. Then it is off to hang out and people watch in San Jose before yo devuelvo. (go home) The bus ride home is ussually quicker and only about half full, aka more pleasent. More than likely I am forced on to the bus do to the afternoon rain shower that happens just about daily between 2:30 and 5.
I live in a barrio just outside the capital, houses are no bigger than they need be, every block is a continous fence with the houses behind them of course, the sewage runs down the side of the street at least to some extent, quickly flowing underneath the streets though. Garbage is everywhere outside the house but inside is probalby more sterile than most american hospitals.
the people are warm and friendly for the most part, I have only been yelled at once and made fun of a few times, although I did not let them know I knew what they were saying so I think the joke is kind of on them.
As long as I do not speak in english, people assume I am from europe. As they say I am too tall and too skinny to be an american (I guess that is okay with me).
I play basketball twice a week where the next tallest person ussually comes to about my shoulders. The costa ricans find it quite humorous.
On the weekends its time for the beach. Get up early on Saturday morning to catch the 6 or 7 oclock bus to the beach of your choice 3 to 5 hours away. Spend the night and return the next day. The beaches a quite impressive, but the rainforest may be equally if not more impressive.
Sadly though the towns surrounding the beachs are quite the stark contrast, dirty does not ussually begin to explain it and the more popular CR becomes the more filth abounds and the more spills into the water destroying CRs beauty.
Well that is enough for one post, but in my next post, I will have to get to what has suprised me, and all the strage parts of my personality that are being tested and put on display via living in Costa Rica.
Ciao,
Friday, March 28, 2008
My second go
I tried doing this blog thing once before, and failed, but after readings friends blogs I have been re-inspired. But been inspired to keep these light or is it lite, I was a biology major; not an English major and am feeling to uninspired to pull up dictionary.com.
On the cusp of leaving on my next adventure, I figured I needed a way to document everything and since the cell phone is staying at home this time the internet's all I've got.
4 months in the frozen tundra that they call Minnnesootah and I guess I call Minnesootah now, don't ya knowh, is now over. I played with DNA on a daily basis, grew bacteria, and prior to the snow falling I golfed almost every day.
I decided that of all my experiences in Minnesota it was the golfing that left me with the most to reflect on. Well maybe not the actual golf, but the people I met golfing.
The middle aged(45-55) men who continued personally humiliate each other. Blaming baldness on years of mirage and a head of hair on years of no commitment just lots of sex. Shall we bring up the one who was married with kids telling me his son was captain of the pot team at the local high school my cousin attends.
Then there was the elderly eastern European woman who just randomly walked onto the course and approached me questioning the purpose of what I was doing. After a short explanation I got to endure some chastisement due to how easy she thought the game must be. Not having the heart to debate this woman, I just kindly handed her a club, placed a ball on the tee for her and said go ahead. Four swings later the ball still resting quietly on the tee, the old woman was barely able to stand as she was bent over laughing. A "thank you" later and she was on her way. Well kind of, she proceed to watch me as long as the path on the outside of the golf course allowed her.
A couple (35-45) year old men in the midst of divorces, a doctor who continued to lecture me on why I should not go into medicine as he got to witness one of my best golf games ever.
The drunken "5 some" (lingo for the number of people playing in one group). Who hassled me as I played through them with a perfect drive, possibly my best sand shot ever, and a birdy putt as to why I didn't have anyone to play with me. ( I kept from asking what kind of jobs they were sporting that allowed them to play golf during the week in the middle of the day?) It'd be a fair guess to say they weren't doing bio research, where you work on your own schedule.
Or the guy who told me not to talk to loud about the fact I was doing "cloning" in the lab, because I was in conservative country.
Or the two daughters, fathers tried to set me up with.
Enough reflecting, well okay I didn't reflect just documented some of my golfing jaunts, on to my favorite quote of the year thus far which game from one of my favorite microbiology students: When I said I didn't know if I was coming with, through a bunch of rambling about this "staph" bacteria that caused bad things and her struggling to come up with the name. I blandly said "MRSA?" which caused an eruption of enjoyable emotion: "Yes! Just do it, do it for MRSA!"
Move over Nike, Just do it for MRSA!!! haha
And because I just love music:
"cause Ive got my own world to live through and uh, huh
And I aint gonna copy you.
White collar conservative flashin down the street
Pointin their plastic finger at me, ha !
Theyre hopin soon my kind will drop and die but uh
Im gonna wave my freak flag high, high !
Oww !"
~One of the Greatest: Mr. Hendrix "If 6 was 9"
On the cusp of leaving on my next adventure, I figured I needed a way to document everything and since the cell phone is staying at home this time the internet's all I've got.
4 months in the frozen tundra that they call Minnnesootah and I guess I call Minnesootah now, don't ya knowh, is now over. I played with DNA on a daily basis, grew bacteria, and prior to the snow falling I golfed almost every day.
I decided that of all my experiences in Minnesota it was the golfing that left me with the most to reflect on. Well maybe not the actual golf, but the people I met golfing.
The middle aged(45-55) men who continued personally humiliate each other. Blaming baldness on years of mirage and a head of hair on years of no commitment just lots of sex. Shall we bring up the one who was married with kids telling me his son was captain of the pot team at the local high school my cousin attends.
Then there was the elderly eastern European woman who just randomly walked onto the course and approached me questioning the purpose of what I was doing. After a short explanation I got to endure some chastisement due to how easy she thought the game must be. Not having the heart to debate this woman, I just kindly handed her a club, placed a ball on the tee for her and said go ahead. Four swings later the ball still resting quietly on the tee, the old woman was barely able to stand as she was bent over laughing. A "thank you" later and she was on her way. Well kind of, she proceed to watch me as long as the path on the outside of the golf course allowed her.
A couple (35-45) year old men in the midst of divorces, a doctor who continued to lecture me on why I should not go into medicine as he got to witness one of my best golf games ever.
The drunken "5 some" (lingo for the number of people playing in one group). Who hassled me as I played through them with a perfect drive, possibly my best sand shot ever, and a birdy putt as to why I didn't have anyone to play with me. ( I kept from asking what kind of jobs they were sporting that allowed them to play golf during the week in the middle of the day?) It'd be a fair guess to say they weren't doing bio research, where you work on your own schedule.
Or the guy who told me not to talk to loud about the fact I was doing "cloning" in the lab, because I was in conservative country.
Or the two daughters, fathers tried to set me up with.
Enough reflecting, well okay I didn't reflect just documented some of my golfing jaunts, on to my favorite quote of the year thus far which game from one of my favorite microbiology students: When I said I didn't know if I was coming with, through a bunch of rambling about this "staph" bacteria that caused bad things and her struggling to come up with the name. I blandly said "MRSA?" which caused an eruption of enjoyable emotion: "Yes! Just do it, do it for MRSA!"
Move over Nike, Just do it for MRSA!!! haha
And because I just love music:
"cause Ive got my own world to live through and uh, huh
And I aint gonna copy you.
White collar conservative flashin down the street
Pointin their plastic finger at me, ha !
Theyre hopin soon my kind will drop and die but uh
Im gonna wave my freak flag high, high !
Oww !"
~One of the Greatest: Mr. Hendrix "If 6 was 9"
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