Go-mania

I'm currently in Vata de Jos, a rural village in Western Romania, sitting on my Romanian porch, looking out at the Romanian landscape, and sipping Romanian wine. It's a fine life I must admit. This is my way to travel - The tourists are few, and nonexistent outside our group. The food is homegrown and homemade; and the people kind. The landscape is mountains and countryside, quaint homes w/ character oozing from every red roof and colorful clay wall, and the occasional cobbled cow or horse making its way leisurely through the fields.

This home's garden looks frighteningly similar to my parents' garden
where I spent most of my childhood doing chores

I'm here with a group of upperclass agriculture students from Purdue University, two Purdue professors, and one Elanco rep. As much as I'd like to say our purpose here is coupled w/ Heifer International, a corporation I cannot rave enough about, I must admit the most I can realistically hope for myself and the students is to have our minds and hearts stretched.

HI is a nonprofit organization with a mission to "work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth." Most notably, it's an organization that works towards this mission in an intelligent and conscientious manner, respecting the cultures and people it visits. The students accompanying me are completing an international service learning project - the goal of which is for them to glimpse Romanian culture and agriculture and HI's impact on families in one village. We'd like to say we're helping out while here, but in truth we're primarily learning from the people and getting fat from their boundless hospitality.

Before departing for Vata, we were prepared to endure a lack of running water, the possibility of insufficient food, and an absence of most luxuries we Americans have begun to consider necessities. Instead we've found open arms, loving great-grandmothers, tightly knit families, and hard working individuals w/ their own luxuries to show for it - delicious homegrown foods, large front porches w/ swings to share, and the time and patience to stop and "literally smell the roses," as one student put it.

One of the host families: their teeny great babushka, me, their babushka, Pam, and their father

I look around and don't see the poverty I was warned of, but instead simply see a different way of doing things and a lifestyle not entirely unlike that of rural America. And perhaps for good reason - those of you thinking HI is only out there feeding poverty-stricken areas couldn't be more mistaken. Although this is one important role of HI, they are also very involved in the advancement of agriculture technologies beyond meeting basic needs. In Vata, for example, there are currently three HI projects, including one to improve genetic selection and breeding systems via artificial insemination. Not that there isn't need for additional resources and education here but it is a far cry from the impoverished community of our expectations.

Hopefully, I'll be able to bring some of their graciousness and tranquility back home w/ me. At the very least, I'll remind myself to take time to relax on the porch and soak in the world around me.

Who doesn't?

PostSecret.com

might as well

I don't usually like 'real' things in my blog but it's Sunday so I thought I might as well preach.



To all the kids who "are just different" - typically the weird ones grow up to lead more interesting lives anyways. So keep an open mind and stay true to yourself. Once you can love yourself and start filling your own mold, you'll realize others' opinions and expectations don't matter so much. In the end you'll be fulfilled and happy, unlike the jerks attempting to build self-confidence by insulting others.

And to the jerks: work to get over your issues. And open your eyes. The world and humanity have so much weird and beautiful and amazing to offer, but you'll miss most of it if you let prejudices blind you.

It always shocks me to hear of ppl hurting others based on differences. Differences keep the world interesting. Without them we're all the same; and the same gets monotonous. But we get uncomfortable when someone pushes our boundaries or rearranges our system. We strike out because we don't want to admit our discomfort or challenge our mentality.

Maybe if we embrace the discomforts and put them out there, honest and vulnerable, we'll have an easier time at addressing and growing past them. Maybe honesty, love, and receptiveness - from all sides - are the way to go.

Now there's an idea.

She does exist!

Yes, I'm still around. Actually still around and without much changed, i.e. no excuse for the recent posting-hiatus. Except for a bad case of writer's block that was delivered straight from the demons' hands of Land of Lame. I'm sitting at the same computer, in the same house and town, and w/ a job disturbingly similar to the woes of graduate research. Except much more enjoyable because I get to leave it all after 8 hours, and at the end of each week I get two f r e e days. Research free. Research-thinking free. Research-worrying free. Fantastic.

But apparently I have EVEN less inspiration for writing. I blame this on two things:  1. I graduated and thus have no more graduate-school angst to draw from. 2. I'm reading "On Writing Well," which is really an incredible book. W. Zinsser makes reading about writing (but excludes arithmetic*) actually entertaining. I look forward to reading it and have learned a lot. So a great experience, except...now I'm afraid to write. Because it will suck. And be too wordy. And there's already enough suck-y, wordy crap out there so why add more? Well because I can. And because I need practice writing something people may actually read (that's what makes it scary).

But that's enough for today.

The title's an M&M commercial reference, btw:



*Zing! This had me cracking up. And then I added the "zing;" it's nearly too much.

Bottoms up

Let me paint last night's scene for you:

Day:  July 14th, 2010.  Evening.  Stifling hot.

Setting:  W. Lafayette, IN.  Backyard-slash-jungle.  Hammock.  Sadly, there is no sign of a refreshing pool.

Dinner:  A beer* and baked beans straight from their family-sized can.  Not heated, not cooled, just straight.

Me:  Lying in the hammock in red high school football shorts and a green bikini top circa 1992.  Munching on my baked beans and sipping some beer.

You may find yourself wondering how I became so glamorous...  I often wonder this myself.

No, this isn't my hammock. I just wanted you to think 

the phrase "banana hammock" today.

*It wasn't actually a beer, but a Woodchuck. Beer paints a better picture though.