Out by 9:30

Gracious. Even though there were a few times when I was snuggled on the dirty floor of the hot forth-floor phone booth, whining to Willie that it has felt like an eternity since I've seen him, this has been a ridiculously fast ride. And this last weeks tornado of papers, exams, and well parties has made it all seem even more ridiculous. Wow.

(A quick side note, as last night begins to creep into my memory. There are girls at clubs in little more than a handkerchief across their breasts and a doily on their ass, and perhaps these girls actually are dying to grind with some creepy guy. Perhaps they want to meet someone and take them home. Perhaps they are just dressed up to dance with their friends. In any case, why can't these horrid men leave ME alone, when I'm in a pair of capri jeans, flip-flops, and a top? --perhaps you expected a more substantial feminist tirade. But its too too early for that. I just want, when I shake my head and literally say 'no' to anyone that I think is approaching me, to be taken seriously. Are there really girls saying 'no' but meaning 'yes' and dragging the rest of us down with them?)

Okay, back to the program. Which is over. Which is sad -- kind of. The partying with UC students I've long had enough of and have ready access to more at home. But Shish and Emily are two absolutely brilliant and charming and ridiculous people, whom I will miss enough to prompt a trip to Berkley soon, with a quick grab for Heather on the way up. (I'm ending with prepositions all over this blog, well, it's too early for grammatical accountability)

Yesterday was perhaps the most charming day of the trip. The sun stayed warm and bright all day (ALL DAY!) and we walked around town, doing last minute trinket buying, and taking pictures of the campus. In the afternoon, we went punting (stick-boating) down the 'countryside' which was so wonderfully funny. Emily fell twice in these odd and amusing encounters with trees. Shish climbed off the boat every time we went under a bridge--to jump from the bridge back into the water. --Heather and I have decided if we could ever have one child like Shish (ridiculous, honest, enthusiastic for everything) and one child like Emily (brilliant, complex, gracious, talented) then we would be perfectly satisfied. Anyway, using my family-vacation-learned boating skills somehow made me even more excited for Hawaii.

Well, Heather and Emily and I are off to Heathrow -- Emily to Chicago (home for her) and Heather and I to spend the next couple-o-days resting and partying in London. That should be lovely.

I have felt so blessed this year. Its hard not to have faith that the messing things of life will work themselves out--and hopefully I'll have my eyes open wide enough to learn the skills needed to greet the rising road. I'm definitely spending some ceiling-staring nights with my eyes focused on the ever larger sign-posts of self-sufficiency, job-searching, --the constant quest to fulfill and not just fill my life. But somewhere in this last year (or two maybe) my pulse has slowed. The landscape of the future in my mind's eye now includes me--this is rather difficult to describe. Anyway, I better check on Heather and print our itinerary.

Love to all, thanks for reading all my dramatic but earnest musings...I hope when you shake your heads at my words its with a generous amusement and not annoyance:)

Shannon's Birthday

Well, while I finish two papers and head into two finals in the next two days, my beautiful Shanny Nanny Face is celebrating her twenty-first. Well I suppose I would have been little help in the festivities at not-quite-legal anyway. But please call her sometime today (everyone) and wish her a happy tipsy-to-pleasantly-drunk day! William, that means you--haha. Okay
Is anyone else ridiculously excited about Hawaii---I want to buy a giant flopsy hat to protect by hair from becoming blonde, again, by the way. And I'd like to re-learn to surf. And I'd like to dance along the beach with the family and a few mojitos---is that possible? Let's make it possible. I'm a bit giddy--having just printed out my papers--there aren’t ready for publishing, but they are finished--so I apologize.
Okay...off to turn the first one in:)

Sunday Morning Coming Down

That’s a song reference, for those who don't know 1970s country tunes--not a drug reference:) Actually I do feel a tad shisty...not because I drank too much while dancing with the hordes of mini-skirt/angel-wing clad, mid-thirties, bachelorettes last night at Club Coco, but because I drank and then decided immediately after to go home and sleep...fun. Well, I do have an entire paper on the CIA to research and write today. Which brings me here, to our small but charming, stained-glass library on an early Sunday morning.
Oh, and I chop-chopped my hair off. Well not I, but a lovely young stylist-girl in town. She would cut a couple inches off, and then I'd say 'well maybe a little more' so then she'd take a couple more off. I figured I rarely have the guts to do anything really different...so I should step up to the plate. I was thinking it hasn't been this short since I was 10, but actually age 6 may be more accurate. The feeling of watching her slice away all the previously dyed portions was exquisite. Leave it to me to turn getting a hair cut into some deeply symbolic - cleansing experience.
Okay...to the CIA I go...well, at least I'm not writing about British policy from 1815 to today anymore.
My love to all-thanks for seein how I'm doing:)

First World Food Poisoning

Yes, joy of joys, I was struck down again...this time by an insidious salad of raw tomatoes and vinegar from the cafeteria. fun. However, for how violently cold sweat convulsions came upon me, they disappeared within a few hours to leave me, well empty, but feeling pretty well. That was yesterday, after lunch, actually...I have yet to enter the cafeteria since then. Emily was fantastic enough to take notes in class for me, and even returned with a giant Cosmo mag, vegan ginger-snaps, and a sport drink for hasty rehydration...sooooo wonderful!

Got a chance to really chat with the mum (English for mother) yesterday, and was surprised that Ed Gerber actually exists (She and the Grandma went to visit in the Palisades) outside of superimposed childhood memories of lawn-upkeep competitions and whistling-lessons. Was a very appreciated mother-comfort-phone-session in my post-food-poisoning hours.
Two papers to write before finals next week. The pending end to this quick summer session is beginning to become a bit more of a reality. Usually my general hatred of LAX would mean that it would easily loose in competition to this beautiful world of cathedral-schools and wandering footpath gardens; however, the fact that Willie will be there upon arrival is tipping the scales a bit for me.
Traveling as much as I have in the last year has impressed upon me, in quite forceful terms, that home and happiness are a matter of persons, not places. I have always wanted to travel, longed to travel, loved to travel--but it was always a visual of changing landscape that tantalized my mind. But land makes for limited conversation. And it really is dialogue that unlocks new places, that traces a lasting impression into your heart. Its not enough to wander through the world reading placards of pre-digested reality, I guess very obviously. God, what German philosopher was it---hmmmm...Schopenhauer?....that said that all human beings will ever be able to understand are other human beings. This doesn't quite extend universally, however, as I really do believe Willie understands what it is to be a tree in a way far beyond my fathoming.
Well, I'm off to see Fahrenheit 911...with mixed feelings. I hate the idea of being swayed by such profitable propaganda, when I'm already---well---me. But if nothing else, the film will be a study in the complicated way modernity and globalization are proving to interact.
Tonight is another 'formal hall' which means large amounts of wine and amusing attempts at vegan creations. I think I'll avoid both for the sake of my tum-tum which really works so smashingly on my behalf.

OOOOO Sarah, Paul, Padres, Cece, Cousins, William, Etc – what do all think of a joint blog venture to tie our family into a cyber dialogue of sorts?? I think it would be a fantastic opportunity for all to really expose a bit of gray matter to one another in a totally non-confrontational and easily posterity-ized manner. Comment!!

The Daily Mail

So I thought I'd let all know a little of what the English papers are fussin' about over here--these articles made the first pages of the Daily Mail:

The Asylum Truth--
The paper's cover featured a large picture of uniform-clad policewoman Caroline Pope, who, at a recent council-sponsored meeting in Midway, voiced her opinion that asylum-seekers are causing unprecedented amounts of crime.
MY BACKGROUND INFO: In my spring-quarter anthro-o-immigration class, my professor touched on the issue of asylum-seekers in Europe, especially Britain. According to my class, an asylum-seeker is a person who is trying to legally enter a country due to a variety of non-economic circumstances beyond their control, usually warfare or ethnic prosecution--that definition is inherently and obviously problematic, as economics are inextricable to such issues. Refugees are those who have already been forced into a new country of residence, by the same set of circumstances. In my professor's opinion, a large percentage of asylum-seekers are actually economically-motivated immigrants. In Europe and in Britain especially (due to more liberal immigration policies then say Germany or Spain) asylum-seekers are often greeted by the public as nothing more than illegal immigrants.
The article cited Pope's rather inflammatory testimony to the council, that there are large numbers of asylum-seekers in her area, more than are legally registered, and they are causing crime. However, her evidence was more than suspicious--she stated that "one individual has been responsible for a great number of street robberies." One individual hardly seems reason to agitate an already concerned community against an ethnic group. The article quoted local people as having heard of 'Eastern European' men pick-pocketing and causing fights, although none had any first-person experience or evidence.
Amusingly, the article also considered the government's handling of asylum-seekers " a shambles" due to the Home Secretary's statement that he does not know how many are in the UK illegally. There is of course no immigration office in this world that knows the number of illegal immigrants in their nation. The U.S. estimates range as widely as 3 to 20 million depending upon what report or book one reads. Unsurprisingly, the Tory immigration spokesman Humphrey Malius considered the Home Secretary's statement, "real cause for concern" saying that "we should always take the opinion of a police-woman seriously." In the last two lines of the two page article, the writer did admit, however, that all crime statistics were in line with normal Midway statistics.

The Personal Note--
Two young teenage boy asylum seekers, claiming to be from Afghanistan, were turned down by British immigration office--causing quite another fuss. They had spent two years in detention centers upon arriving in Australia in 2000 with their mother and three younger sisters. The family had been hoping to join their father, Ali Asquar, who was working in Sydney on a temporary refugee visa; however, the father's visa does not allow family-reunification. To complicate the situation in favor of the boys and their lawyers, Australia's detention centers for asylum-seekers have been criticized by human rights watchdogs for breaking the United Nations Convention on Rights of Detained Children laws.
Britain became entangled when the boys applied to the British consulate, and were turned away as they had already applied to a consulate of a foreign nation (Australia). Even more strange, the boys have engaged in a hunger strike, actually sewing their lips together, and one carved the word 'freedom' in his forearm. If the case (on appeal in the British system as I type) fails, they will be deported to Pakistan (as they are not believed to actually be from Afghanistan).


F.Y.I--the man I met this morning in the coffee house said that the paper I was reading "panders to the lowest common denominator of politics." Interestingly, he also remarked that it, "strangely appeals to women" and is "insidious". I asked him if he believed the paper leaned left or right politically and he replied that it "can find something bad to say against anyone." My mid-thirties, round, pink and blue suit-shirt clad commentator, David, installs computer software, pays £150 for wireless access at the coffee shop, and believes that Blair will survive the next election.
In my opinion, the Daily Mail is little different from the other papers I have read. It is perhaps inflammatory, but not, as David even admitted, biased in one direction. Perhaps it is a pessimists’ paper, with a flair for drama, but I think I'd be hard pressed to find the opposite, here or on any other continent.

Should the boys be sent home? Does a liberal-democratic sovereign nation have the right to keep asylum-seekers out when it feels apt to interfere in the human-rights issues of other nations? If we are more than happy to overthrow Saddam out of the pure generosity of our internationally-minded hearts, can we ever deny citizenship to anyone under that or any such oppressive regime?

Oh the funny things we shove in the Whitehouse

Its as though America is a giant infant, crawling military-style around the world...finding the strangest people to pick up and shove into the presidency.

I promise this will make you smile or cringe--courtesy of my sister--cut and paste, as I cannot seem to make it a link:

http://69.93.11.34/mirror.html

Midterms gone, Clouds parted

Joy of joys, we are done with midterms...not really that great of an accomplishment, but rewarding none-the-less. Emily and I immediately set off to purchase two bottles of white and one red at the nearest Oddbin at student discount of course to augment our drinks on the lawn and formal hall later this evening.
The weather, that has this week ranged from gloomy to depressing, took a turn for brighter skies and spirits as soon as my scribbling pen let up from my second exam, and so we are off to be merry by the river.
Well, everyone send well-wishes Karen's way, as she has her heart procedure at Thorton today! I hope Evan is fulfilling his role, and spoiling you with macaroni attentions.