March Snowstorm Blues

There's a phenomenon in Minnesota--a phenomenon that probably all the northern states experience, but perhaps Minnesota experiences it in more severity. It is the March Snowstorm. You see, in a typical year (and this year was not typical) the months of January and February are often too cold to produce heavy snowfall, and thus in March, when the weather begins to warm up, and the pre-spring showers arrive, we get blanketed with inches upon inches.

That hasn't happened too much this year, though we narrowly missed a huge storm earlier this month. Right now, however, some warm false-spring days led to rain. All that rain fell for about 24 hours, and then a cold snap plowed through, turned it into tiny little bits of ice, and then turned into huge caricature-worthy snowflakes. Now here I am, March 23, 4 months back in this illustrious country of mine, (I accidentally typed country of money there: Freudian slip?), sitting in a coffee shop in a scene worthy of a Christmas card.

Although I believe everyone who reads my blog is also friends with me on facebook, I have some exciting news about the schools I applied for. I have been accepted at all four!!

That includes!
Harvard Divinity School
University of Chicago Divinity School
Claremont Graduate School of Religion
University of Chicago Humanities Creative Writing Option

Now. I am sorry to say that I have already turned down one of these schools. Although I was really honored and flattered that the Creative Writing program admitted me (I was iffy if even that would happen), they offered financial aid to less than 2% of their applicants. I was not one of them, and indeed they only offer half-tuition scholarships. Thus, I knew right away that financially, I would never have been able to support my education there. Sadly I had to turn them down.

I've planned a very exciting visit to Harvard and Chicago for their new student days, which are conveniently right back to back. I get to stay in Chicago with Janelle, and I'm also really excited about THAT, because I haven't seen her since I first got back.

Right now my biggest concern is money. All of the schools, except for Creative Writing, offered me some form of financial aid. Harvard and Chicago both awarded me scholarship grants for about half of tuition. However, once you add the cost of living to tuition, that aid goes down to about 1/4 or 1/3. Since I am already in debt over Hamline, I am really quite concerned about how I will pay for these schools, regardless of which one I choose. Chicago offered me more money, but also has steeper tuition, although the cost of living may be cheaper in the city. It would also be really nice because I have at least one friend there. Really, though, the Harvard program has always been the most exciting to me, and without having any experience of the schools, Harvard is really my top choice. That may change after I visit. Harvard is the best of the best--that name is known throughout the world. In reality, I'm a little afraid that I'll go there, feel totally out of place among the "best of the best" and choose not to go.

My other big concern is the work that I'm doing here in Minneapolis. I love my different jobs and the opportunities I have to make a difference here, in a community that I understand and love. Moving to a new city, even if I plan to come back, is a big commitment, and I will definitely lose opportunities.

Anyway. It's a big decision and I'm super stoked about my upcoming visits.

March is finally here.

I'm pleased to announce that life is grand. Despite how exhausting the last few weeks have been, I feel like it was all worth it.

I attended the Mahle Lecture in Progressive Christian Thought last night at Hamline. It was fantastic. The lecturer, Sara Miles, wrote an amazing book about how she suddenly found herself a Christian convert in middle age: as a married, lesbian, left-wing journalist. She talks about how she followed the Christian faith not because of the ritual or the church, but because of the physicality of communion, feeding people and being fed, and responding to the reality that everyone is indeed hungry. She shows the Christian faith in all of its guttural grit, absurdity of physics, and reality that makes it really eye opening for someone who grew up "going through the motions."

I grew up in the church and I "did church." I was required to do church, and I did it. When I was old enough, I got a job in the church nursery, because I realized that I didn't like the doctrine and the ritual, but I did enjoy serving the community: forming relationships with the babies and their parents, watching them grow and learn. The rest of it felt very fake to me, but that aspect of community and relationship did not.

One of the things that this woman really stresses in her book and in her lecture was the visceral emotion of Christianity. She is also speaks very potently about the way that the Christian tradition speaks about the life cycle: your god was born from a "humiliated teenage girl", suffered and died, rose up into new life like a seed, and commanded you to eat him. The Christianity that she experiences is full of raw emotion, and it comes from how hard she works for her Food Pantry. This is her primary ministry, and the reason she has become famous. She runs a food pantry in San Fransisco right off the altar of her church: truly, literally, inviting the poor and the disenfranchised, and sometimes the cheaters, and the drug addicts, and the unbreakable widows, to the table of God, to partake in a feast. She was able to write down and show me, the girl who grew up able to recite the entire service, what this stuff meant--not only what it meant to her, but what it could mean to everyone.

I was really pleased to meet her and I really learned a lot from the whole experience. Now that I have some time opening up in the upcoming weeks, I will actually be able to involve myself in something like this. That's the scoop from this side of the world for now...

Its a double snowpocalypse.

Well, Minneapolis is now worthy of the Colbert Report, since he's been really concerned about the occurrences of thundersnow. It's still snowing and we've already got 16 inches in some places. I've been in the house for quite some time. No where to go, anyway. It's President's Day and I've got time to kill.

Been working on my originals--fixing the water damage from the massive collision between me and Korea last year. It's been really exciting. I think you'll all really like what I did with it--at least the one I'm working on now. Anyway, it's my brother's birthday today, so Happy Birthday Aidan, and I'm looking forward to African food tonight!!

Transititions can make you terribly busy.

And I've definitely been going through a transition. It's hard to believe that I've only been in the USA for a little over two months. In those two months, I've done a lot, but I'm really happy with the things I've been able to do in just these two months.

I'm currently working, which is spectacular. I sent out resume after resume, and I'm just now starting to hear the curt "no's", but luckily it doesn't matter, because I've been hired to work at the Minnesota Historical Society on the 1968 Exhibit. Long ago, after returning from Ghana, I worked at the society for the summer and into the semester, and one of my projects was helping out with a planning grant for this exhibit. Although they didn't get the grant that I actually helped with, it's really exciting to be back on the project again--now that it's in its final stages. I'm databasing again, but there's no better thing to be working on a database for. Instead of keeping track of addresses and purchases or receipts, I'm tracking down artifacts, images, and working with great designers to catalog the ideas in their floor plans. This exhibit is a traveling exhibit, and it's going all over the country to show the legacy of 1968. Before I worked on this project, I didn't really realize that 1968 was such a pivotal year in our country's history. But this is the year that Martin Luther King was shot (April), the year that Robert Kennedy was shot (June), the year that Nixon won the presidency, and a Minnesotan ran against him. The year started off with the Tet Offensive, which showed to many Americans, who were experiencing war for the first time in their living rooms, on the television set, that the war in Vietnam was not the rosy picture that Korea or WWII had been. There were riots at the DNC in Chicago, protests at the Miss America pageant, and it was also the year that gold medalists at the Olympics raised their fists in the Black Power symbol.

The 1960s as a whole was hugely tumultuous, but 1968 as a year really shows just how tumultuous it was. And every time I watch Jon Stewart rant about conservative pundits, or show them ranting and how little sense it makes, I think of the rise of conservatism, which was also happening--perhaps less famously--in the 1960s. I think the resonance from fear of hippies, fear of dissidence from within, fear of communists and an upcoming arms race, that ripple effects from these 1960s events are what unknowingly drives these folks. That was, in theory, the original rage. Yesterday I got a chance to look at some new photographs we got in from the George Wallace Rally on July 4, 1968 in the Twin Cities. It was pretty radical and interesting to think that maybe this is where our political madness may have began.

Right now, except for interns, I'm the only one working on the project who isn't of the generation who made this year. So it's really intriguing and enlightening to be able to go back and really see all those pivotal moments that I learned about as history, but are most certain not history, and most certainly still living in our nation's psyche today. (As well as the psyche of our Exhibit Designers.) Anyway, I'm loving it.

The best part about this, though, is that it's a part time job. I spend half my time working on this project, but in the other 20 hours of my week, I have other stuff to do. I'm tutoring for a Karen refugee family in Saint Paul, through a tutoring service that hired me in December. Although some of the bureaucracy of working with a third-party contractor to the public school system has been exhausting and frustrating, I am absolutely in love with my kids and their family. They are kind, full of life, and welcoming. I love, love, love working with refugees and immigrants. As a teacher of English, especially to young children, I can really see the results that I am giving. That's what I loved about teaching the little kids in Korea. The changes and the progress was very, very clear. Working with refugee families is hugely important to me as well. I can be an aid to people who are new to my country so that we can work together to make it our country. For kids it's very much about success in school and English skills. It means a lot to me to be able to help these kids.

So on top of that, there's the East African Women's Center. I volunteered there before my time abroad, and I was so grateful and happy that they wanted me to come back and continue to volunteer. I love every minute I spend there--not always because I'm enjoying every minute, but because every minute feels totally worthwhile and 100% valuable. I'm volunteering with the pre-school, which is an absolute madhouse most of the time, but occasionally I get some of these adorable kids to sit down and read, or listen to classroom rules. They are kids to the core--full of love, full of rebellion, full of understanding, and really confused on why they can't communicate with me. The new kids don't speak English. Some of them hadn't left their apartments until they came to the center. Some were born and raised in camps,  their mothers are without husbands and without sponsors. For some, their behavior totally reflects that, and we constantly have discipline problems. Others just passively sit and pretend to understand what's going on around them. But for a 3 year old, who has just learned how to speak his own language, and then gets transplanted to another country, where people look funny and talk in worlds that he's never heard before--it's just plain unsettling. I can't imagine how confusing it must be. I can't imagine how their little brains are putting this all together, or whether their little brains can put it all together.

What I do know, though, no matter how many discipline issues there are, or how powerless I can feel at times, that the tiny little victories that I can score with these kids make so. so. much of a difference. I try to imagine what it would be like if some of these kids went to kindergarten without coming here first. All I can see is the school system eating them up and spitting them out, their frustrated teachers, with 29 other kids to deal with, branding them as trouble makers and never being able to teach them anything about school. Never giving them a chance to learn what being in a classroom means, or how to interact with other kids, the school system would turn them into delinquents before they even knew what that meant. They just wouldn't have the resources or the time, nor would they be able to work with whole families the way that the Women's Center can.

When I first got back to the states, I got together with some old friends to see if perhaps we could rekindle friendships. After explaining to me that he worked at a store, one of these old friends announced that Somalis are thieves. ("I don't care if that's racist, because it's true--they steal stuff and I have to keep an eye on them.") When I see how people who don't know any Somalis see Somali people, it infuriates me. But the sad truth is that people can't even imagine what these kids and their families have gone through, nor can they understand the challenges they face in the US, after the camps and after the warfare. Here in the USA we like to think that when we bring people here--when we "get them out", we've done everything we need to do. But anyone who's lived in a foreign country for just a little while--or even traveled in a foreign country--understands that culture shock, language barriers, and bureaucracy barriers--not to mention xenophobia--can be a barrier just as crippling. Then people get labeled, because they become frustrated, act out against the system, or make mistakes. Little mistakes in our country are not easily forgiven. What do you think would happen if a new immigrant, a young Somali man, gets on the light rail for the first time, but mistakenly doesn't understand how, where, or even that he needs to purchase a ticket? What happens when the transit police ask him for that ticket? Well, when you think that all Somalis are thieves, there's not exactly any room in your head for "maybe he just doesn't understand."

Anyway, all of this has been a lot to swallow in two months. I've been keeping up at work, for the most part, but in my personal time, I've just been playing video games and sleeping. At the end of the day, when I come home, the silence of my personal life can be a little daunting. Luckily, I have tons of amazing people that I work with all day.

University Application Essays

I've been enjoying the past week and a half at my father's house in Staunton, VA. I like Staunton, with its remarkable architecture, warmer weather, and gorgeous hills. I also really like Trinity Church, where my dad is now presiding. It's a really active church, the kind of community that offers excellent outreach--a daily lunch program for homeless--and a lot of spiritual practices. It's a really well-rounded example of what a good church can be, and I like to see that, because growing up church was always kind of an "obligation to be perfect" rather than a "calling to serve and grow." I certainly got that calling to serve and grow in my religion (convoluted in its development as it is)... but I don't think I got them from my church. Now I get to see a church that actually embodies what I think religion should be. It's neat.

But, my time these days is centered around application essays.

I've just gotten my Harvard Divinity School essays in working condition. They're both ready for the last pass, I think, but only a few others have read them, so the editing process has been slim.

I've been juggling the new year's resolution of a new novel. I feel almost hesitant to commit to it, because I don't believe that I'll finish it. I almost finished Children of the Eaten King (or maybe I decided to title it Daughter of the Eaten King... couldn't decide if one was more important than the other) but I got caught up in the last 2% of the novel.

But I have been turning over so many ideas for the last few years, and I really want to get them out and onto paper. Without a real job these days, I need to feel as though I've accomplished things. Drawings are great--and I am accomplishing drawings--but you can't really draw with that kind of precision for days and days on end. It boggles your mind, ruins your eyes, and causes cramp hands. So I need a second creative outlet.. and I really, really need to recapture my writing.

The current idea I'm turning over in my head is a use of an old character I got several years ago. It's not a human character, but rather a character based on Lake Superior. In this world, a deep, endless lake in the north is an endless attraction for humans. They build cities along it's shorelines, and stare endlessly at it's beautiful horizon. But they won't touch it. They'll never touch it, because it disappears, and no one knows where it goes--nor does anyone know what happens to someone in it when it goes. Airships cross the sky around it as if daring it to reach up and grab them, but only a few ever dare to get near it.

Those are the treasure hunters. They are crews of outlaws, usually, who take advantage of the lake's disappearance. They pilot airships that are half airship, half sailing cruiser--things that can sit on the water for moments at a time, searching below for the ancient cities of the lost people. When the lake disappears, they can fly into the baren landscape it leaves, pick it clean of the artifacts of the ancients, and sell them on the black market in Ariana, a city built by the aristocrats, artists, merchants, and madmen that are inevitably attracted to the lake.

One particular captain of these ships has run across some bad blood with a minor aristocrat in Ariana. In order to pay his debts, he is forced to take on the aristocrat's youngest daughter--a pioneer woman in many ways, but not exactly the easiest woman to work with. A premier scholar in the societies at the bottom of the lake, Jessica has fought her way to the top in a world crafted for gentleman. She doesn't take no for an answer, and often pushes for her goals and her goals alone.

The captain and his crew, especially an older man by the name of Tristan, take an immediate disliking to Jessica. Assuming she is better than them, she snubs her nose at their work, and lauds her own as enlightened. Unable to remove her from their midst, because of the captain's debt to her father, they are forced to put up with her, even though she has absolutely no understanding of dangerous sea life. When she pushes them too far to find a particular artifact, the crew is thrown headlong into one of the greatest secrets of their world: they are afloat on the sea when it disappears. Their discovery uncovers buried secrets about Tristan, and even more unexpectedly, Jessica as well.

I think it offers great tropes without outdoing them. But who knows. I'm itching to write it, but I have to write these kinds of.. previews, first. Now, however, my computer battery has almost completely died, and I'm due back at home for dinner.

Returning Home: Twice

Well, sadly I did not get around to doing any posting on Ellora and Ajanta. But I have a lot of spectacular things to say about it. You'll all have to stay tuned for when I write a book, which is (thanks to a mostly botched Nano) about 23,000 words in the making. This is the first year that I've started Nano successfully and really failed. Ah well. I'll survive, and over the next few months I definitely think I'm going to put some effort into this book. It's a travel memoir so if anyone has an eye for that sort of thing, let me know and you can critique it to shreds.

It feels as though I had two home comings after I left India. First, I came back to Korea. I met with all my friends, and visited all my favorite restaurants. I visited my students, my old school, and met up with my boss. I also went to Taekwondo for the last time, and visited with them as much as I could. I did receive my black belt, which is a souvenir that I am exceptionally proud of. I went to the Jimjilbang and soaked in a cool bath in a sweltering, bejeweled room. I also had a pretty wild night in Itaewon, which oddly enough, I had never actually done before. All in all, it was a dramatic, excellent send off with all the things that I both loved and hated about Korea. It was an excellent last snapshot, and I really had a great time. Oh, and I ate myself SILLY.

Then, four days later, I pulled an all nighter to get on a plane back to the USA. I went to Shisha house and enjoyed several hours of joking and talking about classes, just as we did every night. Smoked a couple shishas and had a couple hard ciders (Fred has an excellent hard cider at Shisha house that I didn't try for such a long time--then once I did I couldn't go back!) Then Kristen and I had an epic crap-suitcase-dumping adventure at 2:30am. After that, I loaded up the taxi, hugged my girl goodbye, and headed for the airport.

Even though I was in trouble timewise, there were no problems at the airport. I had to pay the expected overweight baggage charge, but another couple had it much worse than me, since they had like 12 bags, all of which appeared to be WAY over the limit. They were pulling things out of suitcases and dumping them in plastic bags--all sorts of odd things.

The flight was long but uneventful, until I got to Chicago, and read on the news ticker that hours after I had left, shelling had occurred between the North and the South. That was surreal, because suddenly it was as if I really, truly wasn't there anymore. Not only did it seem like distressing news, but it also seemed as though it was far away--not my country. I didn't have the same perspective on the event as I would have had if I were in Daejeon.

Rather overwhelmed by the amount of conversations I could hear around me, I wandered through the airport, got on my flight, and returned home without any hitches. A nice guy, who helped me get my heavy suitcases off of the customs baggage claim in Chicago, got nailed for having green beans in his book bag.

There were massive tears at the airport in Minneapolis. It must have looked like a movie to everyone else watching.  Then, after pronouncing that I was done crying, (and failing) we picked up my baggage, and went to eat burgers at Big Ten down the street from my house. Then I went to the Eden Prairie Mall and wandered around like a kid in a candy store until my legs and stomach refused to let me continue moving.

I am going to do some backlog posting about India, I think... just to get the memories down. Stay tuned for that, and for some amusing posts about reverse culture shock.

I have bad, bad blogger's shame.

I've been horrible about posting here in India. Internet has been iffy at best, and likes to quit and pretend not to work.

We've been teaching song and dance and drama to the kids these days. Some of the other teachers and I wrote out words for the Waka Waka song for the kids to preform--instead of Africa, this time for India. The kids love it, and so do the teachers. It's a lot of fun. Teaching this kind of stuff is a lot harder for me, though. I'm not used to it, and I'm not used to the kind of work necessary to do it.

Overall, though, it's been a great experience. This weekend, I'm heading out for a trip to Ellora and Ajanta. I'll tell you all about it! (I hope... if there's internet. ^.~)