memory, whales, dreams, microscopes

i go to a good school. i am taking interesting classes this semester, on population ecology, on the ways groups use memories for political purposes, on the first microscopic images, on environmental mapping, and on improving my nonfiction writing style. and i like it, so far. i like what i learn. but i dont like having to make the connection on my own all the time. this isnt doing anything. thats a typical liberal arts kid complaint, but i cant help thinking about it. the greeks had a saying about knowledge. they believed it to be the most important thing in the world nearly, but if you have knowledge, you need to use it. or else it just sits there. and is pointless.

and i cant really help but think that i feel very pointless being back here. i like it. ive missed my friends. ive missed my professors. ive missed being around all these people that actually seem interested in what i did over the semester and what i want to do. i met with one professor today and we talked about brazil for a long time. and then the question, well, what do you want to do with all of this. good point diana, good point.

so much. public health, applied social research, disease ecology. i dont know. it would be nice to feel a purpose. and in brazil i felt like we were given the purpose to be witnesses. or something like that. and now im back here, afraid that i am just slipping back into normal bard mode, and i dont want to lose what ive gained. and need to find something to grab hold of and feel meaningful. im going to go to the meeting this week about bard's prison education program. im going to go to ju-jitsu this saturday. im going to be on the search committee for a geography professor. being in amazonia taught me that family and friends though, in the end, are what matter most. doing what you can to help where you are matters most. so what am i doing?

part of me feels ready to go off and be alone. i feel a disconnect with people here so far, a difficulty relating. i strive for the sense of open, wandering, liberating, freedom, purpose, and bonds i had in amazonia. perhaps i do need to move on with my life. i still feel a sense of difference. i dont feel any overwhelming sense of fear. i still feel more capable. still articulate. just...out in the open cold.

and i know i can make these connections and make these things relevant and useful. i always keep a section of my notebooks just for those moments when i feel like ive made a connection. and they are great moments. its the strangeness of being back, its overwhelming, to be honest.

i know it will work out, and i have hope. all the same, theres an emptiness to being back.

Op-Ed

for my Policy and Communications Workshop we all wrote Op-Eds on something we were studying. so i did mine on something we visited in brazil. here it is, read it. let me know what you think about it. post a comment. suggestions and constructive criticism are encouraged and desired. thanks!

Rethinking Sustainability in the Amazon

Dan Becker, January 15, 2009

In 1999 ALCOA-the American Aluminum company based in Pittsburg, PA-purchased the rights to begin bauxite mining in Juruti, a township in Pará, the second largest state of the Brazilian Amazon. The world’s leading producer of aluminum, the eventual product of bauxite, ALCOA abides by a series of environmental impact studies, regulations on climate monitoring and wildlife conservation, and social service provisions. The company has recently been internationally recognized for their commitment to sustainability and the construction of the sustainable mining site in the region. However, how does this explain the disruption of ecosystems and near-unanimous social unrest in Juruti?

The communities of Juruti rest alongside tributaries of the Amazon, the largest and most biologically diverse river in the world, home to over 3,000 recognized species of fish. Inhabitants of Juruti have traditionally made their livelihoods based on agricultural subsistence and small-scale fishing to feed their villages and families. With the arrival of the mining project, these traditional-use areas became off-limits to Juruti’s communities, greatly restricting their access to all that the biodiverse forest and rivers provide. In addition to being cut away from traditional sources of income and basic amenities, residents fear that ALCOA’s rinsing of bauxite ore in the township’s waters will pour sediments into the main lake and drastically alter the water’s composition.

Pumping roughly 5,000 liters of water per hour for the mining operation, ALCOA is showing signs that the company does not understand nor give much credit to understanding the local ecology of the region. In Juruti, the primary water systems are composed of highly acidic black-water. Due to the decay of vegetation as it moves through the flooded forests, varzeas, the water takes on a dark-colored tint and is generally lower in nutrients than other water systems. Yet because of these conditions, black-water contains a unique array of flora and fauna. ALCOA’s bauxite extraction is in the process of extracting the water from this system and replacing it with white water from other sources made of an entirely different composition, drastically altering the environment and the community’s source of fish and drinking water.

While ALCOA has strutted a commitment to sustainability in their extraction sites, these areas remain just that, a source of profit. Social movements in Juruti stress the desire for a share in the monetary gain, inclusion in the project, and access to their traditional lands. The company’s record of their involvement and participation with the communities they extract from is dismal. Juruti is only one small area where communities’ ecosystems and connection with the resource management process are dictated by ALCOA. In 1963 ALCOA’s building of a dam in Suriname flooded nearly 600 meters squared of forest and displaced over 6,000 individuals, who received only $3 each in compensation. Since 1986, over 47 ALCOA facilities in the US have been fined for environmental violations, the most notable being a $3.75 million penalty for pollutant discharge into the St. Lawrence River.

Global demand for aluminum is steadily rising with the US being one of the largest consumers. Aluminum can be found in wrappers, cans, pots, and toasters, just to name a few. This demand is dependent upon bauxite importation from regions such as Juruti, which in turn depends on the exploitation of these local communities and environments. Companies like ALCOA are in part able to continue with these abuses under the guise of sustainability and sound environmental management; however, it is clear that not only is this a hollow illusion, but their impact on nature and communities has so far done more harm than good. Sustainability has become a big buzzword these days, but the international and environmental communities need to be more critical and thoughtful as to what it entails. As consumers with our inherent connection to the extraction and importation of raw materials, we can start by being cautious of where our everyday products-such as all things aluminum-come from, and especially at what cost, even if it does happen to be an ocean away.

YESSS

we just had a lecture on disease ecology, and it was exactly what i was looking for. not in the research scientist way (although that too is appealing), but in a public health oriented way. it is so amazing. did you know that 2/3 to 3/4 of today's newly emerging infectious diseases in the world come from animal hosts or insect vectors? or that a recent study in belize...well..ill lay it out for you, so, spare me.

ok so. belize. certain types of vegetation that allow for a certain species of mosquito to flourish. it is a vector for a certain kind of human-risk malaria. fortunately for us humans, this mosquito isnt a great vector for the spread of malaria, so there isnt much human risk. now. runoff from agricultural fields upsteam flow into this marshy area. the runoff contains a strong deal of pesticides from the fields, which is high in phosphorus content. nitrogen and phosphorus are the two main ecosystem nutrients of importance, along with carbon. the influx of phosphorus accelerates certain plant growth in this area, and this type of vegetation becomes dominant, changing the ecosystem. this new vegetation makes a good habitat for another species of mosquito, which is in turn a great vector for malaria. and now human risk for malaria is suddenly high. and so, it demonstrates that by using these pesticides, human activity and behavior is, through an ecosystem approach to health, raising communities in belize's risk to malaria. and that through a combination of technical solutions (less harmful pesticides/reduced P content) and socio-cultural solutions (awareness and incentives to use alternative/organic agriculture) human risk to malaria can be reduced, and potentially restore the ecosystem back to a non-malaria filled habitat.

thats my quick primer on ecosystem ecology and my current excitement. im looking for internships that do exactly this right now, and hope to meet with some professors and the CDO at bard about it. but i was in this lecture and just loving every moment of it. i took 6 pages of notes. the lecturer was great, and made the connections between epidemiology and ecology that i want to know about. we even did a crash course in basic epidemiological foundations and models. very cool stuff.

still listening to the pixies.

we're chained

i was going to post the lyrics to a song that ive been obsessing over, but you need to just hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIkWJZf33UY


this is the background to my laptop. my friend here commented that its a really great photo, great composition. i agree. for some reason, while listening to this song, it just seemed to sum up my brazil experience for myself. maybe between that, reading cosmicomics which is wonderful in every way, and learning about complex ecosystems, something seems quite right. eventually i want to read susan sontag's essay "regarding the pain of others", its the essay that my friend was telling me all about that prompted me thinking about photography again. sometimes i think about what it would have been like if i had stuck to my original plan of majoring in photography and human rights. the interest is still there. im considering planning out my last semester at bard to just be...documentary photography and senior project, more or less. maybe some more biology. we'll see when the time comes. for now, im getting pretty good at just living in the present. i come back from class, listen to some music, do some push ups, think about the things i enjoy right now, write a bit, read for a while. and that makes me pretty content. i made couscous and ate it for the first time in a while last night. i dont know why ive never liked couscous before, its amazingly delicious. sometimes i think about wanting to learn to make soup. good soup. with dark black coffee. maybe some fish. maybe seattle or baltimore. who knows.

all set to go

Monday: 4-6:20 Cultural Technologies of Memory
Tuesday: 9-10:20 Hooke's Micrographia
Wednesday: 10:30-12:30 Ecology & Evolution; 3:15-5:45 Introduction to Global Information Systems
Thurs: 9-10:20 Hooke's Micrographia; 1:30-3:50 Writing the World
Friday: 9:30-12:30 Ecology & Evolution lab

not too shabby at all. it will be great having most of monday off. means i can get away for a weekend if necessary and not have to worry about the sunday rush back to school.

a little recap of what these classes are actually about:

BIO 202 Ecology & Evolution
This core course for biology majors is an introduction to the general principles of ecology and evolution that, with genetics, form the core of biological understanding. In addition to studying foundational ideas in both ecology and evolution, we will explore modern topics at the boundary between these two areas. We will consider, for example, how genetic variation among individual organisms can influence ecological interactions, and how these interactions can influence fitness. We will focus on a mechanistic understanding of processes, using model-building to inform that understanding.

ANTH 332 Cultural Technologiesof Memory
This course is organized around several practices and technologies that produce collective and personal memory. The class will explore a distinction commonly made between 'memory' and 'history', asking on what basis this distinction is made and how it maps on to our ideas about foreign places and people. The techniques and technologies of public memory we will examine may include ancient "memory palaces," historical writing, oral narrative, ritual, myth, monuments, museums and archives. We will also explore how radio and photography are used to produce national and familial representations of the past. The focus in each section will be on how the particular medium of remembering shapes the content of what is remembered. We will address who has access to memory practices, stressing the link between the production of particular memories and their political uses. The class will give students a theoretical base to write a final research paper that situates a contemporary memory practice in its specific cultural and historical context: the recent proliferation of family genealogies, Holocaust testimonies and/or museums, the truth commissions, local histories are among a few possible examples.

HIST 164 Hooke's Micrographia
A monument of natural philosophy and scientific illustration, Robert Hooke's Micrographia (1665) was the first laboratory manual in microscopy. A great experimentalist, Hooke developed his research as a Fellow of the newly founded Royal Society of London. Hooke and his colleagues intended the work to be a manifesto of experimental method and faith in progress. They also hoped Hooke's observations would lend credence to atomism, a notorious ancient philosophy that was being rehabilitated in the seventeenth century. The work's descriptive and experimental language suggests objectivity, as does the author's recourse to geometric principles. Yet Hooke's treatise is also permeated with a theological agenda. We will read the Micrographia, examining its philosophical antecedents and experimental foundations. We will also investigate Hooke's life and work, his association with the Royal Society and contemporary savants, as well as the links between science and society during the Scientific Revolution.

ES 308 Geographic Information Systems
2 credits This course is designed to provide undergraduate students with a comprehensive review of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and remote sensing technologies as they are used in a variety of social and environmental science applications. Through a mixture of lectures, readings and hands-on exercises, students will acquire an understanding of the structure of spatial data and databases, basic cartographic principles and data visualization techniques, how to conduct spatial analysis and methods for developing sound GIS project design and management practices. Upon completing this class, students will:
* Understand the fundamental concepts of geographic information systems and their relationship with other information management systems.
* Gain familiarity with GIS software for conducting basic GIS analyses and producing cartographic products.
* Conduct studies typically carried out in GIS including site selection, analysis of spatial/temporal processes, assess environmental impacts, geocode data and conduct point pattern analysis.

LIT 124 Writing the World: Nonfiction Prose
This is a course in two skills: learning to make excellent nonfiction prose and learning to see the world around you. When it comes to the art of nonfiction prose, the emphasis nearly always falls on the personal, and especially on essay and memoir. In this course, I want to turn our gaze outward and to think about how we write from direct experience of events. Our models will be drawn from history and from the broad category of nonfiction writing often, and absurdly, called "current events." Our goal will be to become compelling witnesses and makers of acute prose—but our goal will also be art, not journalism. Students will be expected to write 4-5 pages every week.

it looks pretty, great, actually. i think it will be a really engaging semester. some bio, some practical environmental tools, some philosophy, some history, some human rights, some (lots) writing. and it ends up most of my friends are living in/very close to my dorm. excellent.

Cosmicomics so far is really great.

"It is all so meaningless we might as well be extraordinary"
-Francis Bacon

lately i feel confused over a lot and am not quite sure what is going on and where i am going. perhaps ill figure it out but for now it seems like something in the distance that i cant quite grasp or figure out. but i wish i had an answer.

sometimes i feel like dissolving into a petri dish filled with all those microscopic things. life seems much more at ease. things just do what they do. the workings of everything around us, yet you never see it. its just a fact of life. just to get away from it all, but yet still be connected to everything else at the same time. some kind of bliss, perhaps.

on the ride back to the poughkeepsie train station from chilling in kingston with some friends, a friend and i had a pretty great conversation. what began as talking about what exactly ecosystem ecology is fluxed into one on documentary photography and a long interesting explanation on susan sontag's "regarding the pain of others", a treatsie on documentary photography, witnessing human rights atrocity, the human reaction to extreme violence and suffering, etc. and sent my mind racing back to anthropology of violence and suffering, and made me feel very excited for taking cultural technologies of memory this semester. it is also making me consider taking a history of photography course seeing as i still havent heard back from the writing professor. but the conversation also looped into some of my thoughts on witnessing atrocity and suffering from my time in brazil, which then went into my own rant on gift theory and my feelings on, after having borne witness to something like america's aluminum involvement in Juruti and the suffering and social unrest it causes, my/our/american's responsibility to change the way that power is distributed. and the difficulty in being faced with someboy asking you, as americans, to tell their story so hopefully something will happen, and the social burden of that responsibility, but the need to act on it. as sontag said, many a times the human reaction when faced with an image of atrocity is to turn away, exclaiming that it is too much to look at and take in. but that this reaction, although understandable and near-universal, is a selfish one that we each on our own need to face and overcome. because the discomfort we feel upon the glimpse is nothing compared to the suffering of those within the frame.

at times i feel overwhelmed by the scope of it all. of having gone to brazil and seen these things with my own eyes, experienced them with my own senses. of coming to terms witht he dichotomy in my brain. do you pursue what makes you happy, or is there a larger signifigance? if i think about obligation to recipricate, if i think about my conversation with maura my host mother about the obligation to give back, a obligacao, what do i do? this whole conversation made me think about the things i know i feel interested in.

documenting, witnessing, representing
resource control and conflicts, and their health impacts
ecosystem change and human health
participatory appraoches to health and ecosystem management
gift theory, i give because you give, the obligation to reciprocate

i want to document. but i dont think that alone is enough. i know what studying human rights and violence did to me freshman year. it was too much. but looking back, a selfish reaction. like anthropology and i, i dont think that documentation and witnessing along might be enough. im not sure yet. ill find out. but i know i think public health is important, that a healthy ecosystem helps our health, whether through direct clean air and water, or whether it guarantees us resources to use, or if it gives us a host of ecosystem services. and then the whole political ecology and resource conflicts and resolution part also get to me. ive never given up my interest in human rights...it just shifted forms. but ethnography and documentary photography really arent all that different. different tools. but both are trying to accurately portray the world, hopefully the way that the people living it see it. both are interested in everyday life as having the most meaning in the end. both can give us glimpses. writing gives you stories, photography gives you the visual image. i like narrative better, i think. a picture tells you a thousand words, perhaps. but a narrative, a story, forces you to confront the atrocity. a story makes you relate it to your own experience and to see the human element. anthropology falters when it uses these stories just to legitimize a theory, because it still sees itself as a science. photography falters when it tries to make art instead of document and witness, and the photograph of suffering or violence turns into something you hang on your wall in a college dorm, no longer a glimpse of memory but an object. hence objectified, it loses the human face. i guess i imagine doing environmental health work while using my tools as pseudo-ethnographer to bear witness, but also to use my desire to do documentary photography as well.

i dont know if that would make me happy or not. im hoping that a few professors can do tutorials with me at bard, im sure it will work out. i want one on ecosystem change and health, one on witnessing and documenting, one on more resource conflicts and political ecology, and one on applying medical anthropology with an environmental perspective, hopefully with looking at participatory approaches. i dont think that should be too hard to arrange. either way, i took my taxi back thinking about all these things, decided to get dropped off at the main building, and took the 25 minute walk through the snow to keep thinking about these things. and then i went back to my room, and read an old article from anthropology of violence and suffering i had saved on my computer about genocide, witnessing, and social conditions that allow groups to massively kill off or separate from society whole groups they deem below human. and now im still laying here, thinking about it all. thinking thinking thinking. im glad i went to brazil. to see the human dimension i neededin order to be forced out of being jaded and feel the impulse to stop just learning theory and social critique to start thinking about how to apply it all and how to change what i can change. but then its also nice to come back to bard and know that there is still this place where it is ok for me to think about the philosophical issues at the heart of this all. and that in reality, i can do both. so far my experiences back with bard people have been nothing but good. i havent felt the sense that i am...reverting back, or anything, around them. but more like...all of what i wanted, the ability to talk about serious things but also be able to joke around, was always there, i was just too afraid and unsure of my own abilities to keep up in conversation to take the chance to engage. but it seems the more i get back there to some sense of where i belong, the more i do feel that maybe that is right, and i do feel more myself, just a myself that maybe i didnt quite feel i was ready to be. if that makes any sense. what im trying to say is, at least i think i feel somewhat at home. in a weird semi-quasi-pseudo-artsy-philosophy-way. it gives me the freedom and environment to think and be ok with that. general economy, right george bataille?

of course all of this makes writing my 2 pg essay for ecosystem ecology a little more difficult. but im also learning a great deal here, and am thankful for the opportunity. living alone more or less is also helpful, w/o internet in the building. lots of reflection, lots of being ok with being alone, and lots of time to read. and it just hit me with an obvious fact, but: one cant learn everything. one cant read everything. i will still read susan sontag because it interests me. but i also just had somebody tell me about what points stuck out the most to them. and i learned a lot, and it hit a chord in me. i cant and wont learn and read everything. i cant take all the classes i will ever want to take. but all i class is is just readings and talking about them. which i can do with whoever, whenever, for as long as i want. all i need to do is talk to people about things they read and learn about and care about. and i will learn so much more than i every could by myself.

oh my ramblings.

im not sure. theres a hunch. and its uncomfortable.

nitrogen rules the world (no but seriously)

past 2 days have been pretty grand, much better now that im more used to the ebb and flow of the tide here at Cary. we had some pretty wonderful lectures about primary and secondary productivity (producers and consumers) and just had a great lecture on the nitrogen cycle, which seems a perfect place for me in terms of thinking about human affects on ecosystems and how that affects our health. humans more or less double the natural release of nitrogen through fossil fuel burning and agriculture fertilizers. not only that, but the release of nitrogen into the air poses air pollution problems, and the runoff of nitrogen in these terrestrial zones goes into the water, causing eutrification. many forests and riparian zones like marshes or wetlands act as buffers for this nitrogen runoff, so the preservation of these areas is actually very vital to our health. once the nitrogen release gets into water supply, it can have polluting effects on the drinking water, but also affects biodiversity rates, and thus, fish and other edible and vital organisms in the ecosystem, well, die. so, in an ecosystem approach to health, preserving wetlands and buffer zones helps to give us a steady aquatic food supply and filter our water supply. theres much more where that came from, but as you can see, im very excited about it all. it gets even more interesting once you get into urban ecology and how this process and preventative measure can be carried out in urban zones, which are rapidly increasing throughout the world. i forget what the statistic is, but its the majority of the world's population in something like 10-20 years. important stuff to think about, so thats what im trying to look into internships about.

but i did manage to put together a semi-resume last night, or at least lay out a bunch of points and traits blah blah blah. i guess i look pretty decent on paper so far. needless to say this course and brazil research helps a lot in the skills and experience department. not an internship per-say. but even here with Cary our workshop is going to put together a draft op-ed piece on a topic we are interested in, which i need to work on this weekend. maybe i should just write it about nitrogen? i need to get back to bard and talk to some professors about this, or, how to map out a good course of study for the senior year. right now i have one class slot free seeing as this writing professor never got back to me, and although i liked the idea of getting 1/3 of my remaining distribution reqs out of the way, it also feels appealing to take Introduction to Human Physiology or Biology on Non-Infectious Disease. maybe i'll just do non-infectious disease, because it covers basic human anatomy as well, and i think will talk about environmental pollutants. i could use more health classes on my resume anyway. but then theres the conundrum of taking 2 intense biology courses, and a 300 level anthropology seminar, and a 300 level 2 credit GIS class, and my 100 level history class that will still be a lot of work...all at the same time. i can handle 18 credits sure...but...2 biology might kill me. but i cant drop ecology & evolution, oh no. ill talk to my professors. maybe they can help. itll be great, and all work out.

but yes, nitrogen cycle. very interesting. just thought i would share. and in a pretty good mood. feeling capable and stuff. im so excited to get back to bard and get into all of this stuff again. read biology, anthropology, history, philosophy. sometimes i wonder about my education and wish i knew a little bit more about...for example...resource conflicts. one of my friends from SIT has all these classes at their school where you take an issue, lets say diamond conflict or oil conflicts, you learn about the geology/biology etc formation of the resource, how it comes into existence, its biological/physical/chemical properties, and how that in turn influences social structure, social decisions, etc etc. like, a class on the carribean about its geological formation and ecosystems and how that then in turn helps to influence culture? a little environmentally deterministic sure, but its still very interesting to think about the cause. at bard i have learned a lot about effect and to target that as my subject, but i think the cause is equally important to look and and learn about. after all, thats why i am so interested in ecology to the field of public health. because its the fundamental basis of what all of our life is structured upon. without the cycling of breathable air or drinkable water or the formation and regeneration of natural resources, we wouldn't exist in the first place.

SO MUCH COOL SHTUFF.

ecology ecology ecology ecol....

what a weird experience. today is my third full day at the fundamentals in ecosystem ecology course at the cary institute for ecosystem studies in upstate ny. its incredibly interesting, incredibly intense, and incredibly over my head at times. im trying and working hard in lectures to grasp onto the material and have it click. unfortunately, my lack of biology and chemistry make it difficult. im able to get the basic ideas though, im pretty sure, and in the end, thats what matters. im not receiving credit for the course, so i can just do my best to learn. biogeochemisty, primary production, secondary production, nutrient cycling, energy budgets, carbon cycle, aquatic ecology...hopefully by the end of this course these things will mean more than just fancy words to me, and ill maybe even be able to explain in non-science jargon what they mean to you.

im in a workshop about policy and communications, where we spent 3 hours talking about and practicing how to make scientific research more accessible to the general public, how to convey these concepts easily and how to convey why something like a food web is, well, actually of importance. its very useful, and my public speaking skills always need more work, but its nice to have an outlet to talk about how to actually maybe make some use out of all this. whether its social science or natural science, so much of it is dominated by experts doing research on things for the reason of understanding, knowing. but never quite doing. the fact that there is a distinction of applied science is extremely frustrating. in social science it is a little different, since by working with groups of people via interviews and data collection, there intrinsically is some kind of relationship where your work should, ethically speaking, relate back to help the community you extracted information from. they gave you the material your new theory or book or etc is based upon, and so you are obliged to give back. basic marcel mauss sort of concept. in natural science its a little different at least, since as far as we currently know plants, animals, ecosystems, and other organisms aren't voluntarily giving information and data away, and since we can't sit down and interview them we just have to assume all the data collection is ok. maybe some day somebody will find out they have some sort of consciousness, and maybe that will warp everything. but my point is, with natural science there isnt as much of that obligation to give back to the community you are working with when your field is ecology, and so it skews the whole idea of responsibility in some regards. like if you work with co2 in a forest. but theres also fields and fields of ecology, like disease ecology or urban ecology, which we will study next week, that do include humans in the web of ecological interactions, and thus, perhaps their work, by nature, is more applied.

end rant.

its a little disconcerting being the only undergraduate. it makes you realize how much of a culture there is to science. im pretty out of the loop id say. i dont have any kind of ecology research since im not doing a graduate or doctoral thesis, so...i dont have much to relate to the gang here about. today in our policy and communication workshop we had to do a simulation of a telephone and television interview to talk about our research and why it is relevant, explain it to the public, reduce jargon, etc. so i wasn't able to really do what everybody else was doing, little frustrating things like that. i could go into more socially oriented things, but thats not what the course is about, so i wont.

other than that...feeling a little stressed out in general about life. i felt so fresh and rejuvenated upon my return from brazil, such a sense of being able to do anything, everything, capable. recently ive felt somewhat on the other end of that. maybe its been just being home. maybe its been culture shock depression. probably other things. being here feeling a sense of cluelessness, or not being able to connect well with the people here, doesn't help much. id like to think im generally an easy person to get along with, and would like to think i make myself pretty accessible and open. i am an open minded person, i know that much. maybe its also about wanting to make amends and fix things, but not being sure quite how. i want to feel that sense of happiness, capability, and rejuvenation that i felt in brazil. i dont know where it went off too, but im hoping i find it again back at bard, back in something of a comfort zone, or at least the nearest thing for me.

im realizing here that ecosystem ecology is not my thing; im ok with that. i dont think research scientist really has my name on it. im hoping i can find soon what it is that really makes me happy. i struggle. i know what i think is important, and i will apply for internships this summer based on that, hoping i can make some sort of difference. but what makes me happy? a brainstorm is in order.

• finding people i dont feel strange being quiet around. i hate when i feel uncomfortable about being quiet.
• i really loved the boat trip on the amazon, the whole experience of just living on one
• looking at stars
• engaging and slightly dark novels, being a writer isnt obscure in my mind, but i would probably be haunted by the question of all the things i wasnt doing to help the world
• i like anthropology, and im good at it, but same problem. theres too much about it that i find irrelevant to solving actual problems for me to go too seriously into it. it focuses on community development, listening and taking people/cultures other than ones own/ones self seriously...so much good. but past the undergraduate level, it seems its mostly designed to go get a pHD and teach at a college. and i dont particularly love giving presentations so i dont know if that much public speaking is up my alley anytime soon
• good cups of coffee
• again, i love the idea of reciprocity and giving back. and you know it makes you happy to give a gift somebody really enjoys. or in a not so materialistic sense...it just feels good to know you are doing something that makes you a good person, to be a giving member of society, to contribute. although its dry and cynical, this one joke website i go to sometimes for a laugh had this one line...something like..."self-esteem and the ability to like yourself only come after you've done something that make you likable." which is a little different, but still related, in a way. helping, being in a community, feels good. plain and simple. i miss being a part of a real community, which is something that i need to start as soon as i get back to bard
  
• being in cities makes me surprisingly happy, on a social level. but being near water also leaves me content. answer: maybe end up living in a port city eventually.
• and i actually do like writing. or really, learning that what i write might actually have an impact. even if that just means changing somebody's image of something, or shifting their opinion a little bit.

so what do we have? writing reading cities boats water giving back etc etc etc. a nice framework, but still...what just makes me happy? not feeling guilty, for one thing. i want to find this something so badly. my parents always told me to make sure i end up doing something that 1) i love and 2) i know helps people. in brazil the experience made me think thoroughly about the latter, but since i was already pretty happy i guess i didnt stop to think about how to tie that in with the former. i think back to high school and remember how happy wrestling and photography made me. more or less because they gave me an outlet for expression, a chance to be myself, and i know i harp on it a lot, but ive really missed that at my time at bard. one of my promises to myself was to give myself that again upon coming back. to exercise, get involved with a martial art, start writing more, to find, in short, something i love and care about and want to devote energy to. then again maybe i had that, and lost sight of it.

trying to figure yourself out, out of context (like in this random ecology course) is tough work. i told myself and this blog while in the amazon, in the south of para i think, that i knew the person i think is inside of me, that i have the potential to be, and now just need to find ways to...be him. find outlets. honestly i havent felt much at all like that person here at this course, and it bothers me a lot. maybe over parts of break in general, to certain people, ive seemed unlike myself and i want to correct that. i feel like here ive shelled up to some degree, partly out of not understanding the material, partly out of not feeling at all understood/accepted by the people here. point is, i want that to change as soon as possible. not to say i wont take everything i can out of this experience...but i want to feel more like myself. which maybe i should take more accountability for while im here. but its hard to be yourself when you just feel so...different. maybe im just crazy, with this post being blatant proof. but maybe, just maybe, i have a point?

sss

happy new years and off i am, again

another new year.

tomorrow i leave for my ecosystem ecology course at cary. im excited, although a little bummed that the process to apply for credit was so burdensome. at least i can put it on my transcript. besides, im more excited about just learning about this stuff anyway.

break's been an interesting time. ive been feeling for sure whatever kind of culture shock depression there is. its more of missing the kind of life i had in brazil, that kind of go with the flow independence that one just doesnt quite have living in the suburbs . i also miss constant change, and back at home its all too easy to drift back into the daily grind and routine. which ive tried to mix up here and there, but i think ive been feeling some of what i gained slipping, so, its time to be on the move again and throw myself in to something random. a graduate level ecology course sounds just about right, and comes at a good time. although, the trade off is that i really havent seen much of some people from home, and thats not great. theres still so much to catch up on. and i want to tell people all about brazil and my experience but...one can't just do it all at once. ive tried...and i think it just loses a lot in translation. or at least, when i give the typical overview of my semester, to me at least it doesnt sound all that exciting. i think its like my friend maisha said, "dont tell me about it all at once. ill find out in little stories throughout next semester". and i think thats a good way to approach it. im pretty nostalgic for it though. as much as it was frustrating at times, it was good to get through to the other side. and i do feel different for it, it most atmospheres. when im surrounded by friends i can feel a different me. or just this feeling of warmth and strength inside that ive felt missing for a while.

right now i am starting to apply for internships and put together my resume. im giving myself a month to get applications and cover letters in. i do believe i have a general idea of what i want to work on. and i think i might know what lights me up. but im not sure. im sure being back at bard will rekindle that spark. my friend told me about this quote thats been haunting me:

"don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. and then go and do that. because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

i dont know who it is by. brazil made me think so much about one's obligation to one's community, and made me see what some communities really do need, what sorts of help really is important. but at the same time, who decides who to help whom? if i am in america, living in the suburbs of pennsylvania or the little town of red hook in new york, who is to say that i should or should not work with those communities or with some group that works with amazonian communities in the tapajos? where is my obligation to help, to give back? what if what really makes one come alive isnt in their home, but far away? or what if it isnt even what those communities need? but if it makes me come alive...im not making much sense, just trying to sort something out in my mind. i know what is important is grassroots bottom-up organizing, capacity building, environmental education. but i know the arts, culture, self expression, is also important. all things contribute to a holistic vision of health. making a healthy ecosystem is conducive to good health. but so is giving people the tools and power to address these problems in a political sense. but so is helping people express their thoughts, worries, fears, hopes, dreams, on a piece of paper, with words, with paint, with mediums. whether i work as a writer (vonnegut had a great quote about writing, "why bother? i feel and think as much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not. you are not alone"), somebody who works within capacity building, or somebody who works in the amazing new field of eco-epidemiology-ish, it all works towards the same end. which makes looking for internships so difficult.

Collegiate Leaders in Environmental Health
WE ACT
Center for Environment, Health, and Justice
Environmental Law Research Institute
Pesticide Action Network North America
Food and Water Watch

environmental health, resource management, corporate responsibility, pesticides, clean water, education and outreach. theres so many possibilities. i could also look into environmental education, environmental journalism, etc etc etc etc etc. i know i want to do something with advocacy research, for sure. but what brazil showed me, is that like i said, its all towards the same thing. so if im interested in health...im interested in everything?

i mean...
ecosystem services
community building
capacity building
grassroots organizing
toxic exposure
microbiology
looking at the city as ecosystem
community based participatory research
democratic decision making
...how to i try and throw that all into one summer internship experience? HA

oh and i have an intestinal parasite living inside of me. today i get to try and find out what kind of lovely parasite it is. fun fun fun fun. i also get to get a few pairs of new clothes for school. and then pack. and pack some more. dreamcast is coming with.