The Great Snow of 2007-2037

It's snowing to beat the band outside. It started at 12:00 noon, and it's expected to stop sometime in 2037. Just kidding (I hope). I think it's actually supposed to stop tomorrow night. The expected accumulation is 6 inches but they never tell the truth about these things. I always throw a few inches on top just to be sure. But the wind tomorrow is supposed to be worse: 20-30 mph with 40 mph gusts. [Insert any old "Windy City" joke here.]

My first day back at work in two weeks was...a let down. Sort of. I expected a few problems to be resolved and some improvements made but I have always attached too much importance to the outcome of my expectations. It's a fault of mine. Thanks to a relatively low call count, I was able to put some sort of semblance of order into our e-mail system and handle some back issues. Maybe I'm taking the job too seriously but I'm trying to do a better job of presenting a friendly and responsive Baha'i Distribution Service.

After work, I went down to the House of Worship (HoW) as I'd promised someone I would do. By that time the snow was getting a little out of hand so I decided to drive lest I turn into a snowman on the walk down and back. I was able to pray in peace and silence for a while before it was time for the evening devotional sponsored by the staff of the HoW. They're typically your standard devotional service but occasionally there's something especially nice, like this evening there was a lady who sang so beautifully that it brought me to tears. She sang one of the Hidden Words in Spanish and English: "O My Servant! Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more." It was clear that she had sung in the Temple before because she knew how to work the acoustics very well, drawing out a note here or adjusting her tone there so that it rose as high as the Greatest Name at the apex of the Temple's dome.

Since I'm off for work tomorrow for New Year's, I went to the store and bought a nice pork roast to cook in the slow cooker so I'll have something decent to eat tomorrow. There's no better time than a holiday to take a break from the Raman noodles and eat something...well...edible. Of course the last time I tried to cook some real food the oven practically burst into flames, so let's hope this doesn't turn into the same type of culinary abortion.

Yesterday I made a foray into the world of Chicagoland shopping. I went to Westfield's Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, which is pretty much the biggest monument to free market capitalism that I've ever seen. The anchor stores are Macy's, Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdales, and then just throw in probably 200 other stores, including a Loew's Movie Theater and a Barnes & Noble. It took me literally 15-20 minutes to find a parking spot. I could only bring myself to visit Macy's, Nordstrom's and Lord & Taylor. I was after a pair of gloves, a scarf and some new socks. I got most of that at Macy's, and I just wanted to swing by Nordstrom's to see if there was actually anything on sale. I quickly determined I could never afford anything in that store and moved on to Lord & Taylor.

In Macy's, I panicked because I forgot which door I came in. I could see myself wandering the mall complex aimlessly like a man in the desert. All in all I think I braved the storm pretty well, although I was acting like a bit of a slack-jawed yokel by gawking at all the stores and all the pretty things I'll never have. But to be honest, it's kind of nice to know what you want and know what your limit is and go into the store and get exactly what you want without spending more than you intended. In comparison to people who go thousands of dollars in debt chasing the latest fashions and trends, it's not really all that bad.

I have had this quote from Baha'u'llah in my head (mostly because there's a song made of the "Ye are the stars..." portion), so I guess I'll close with that:

"O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll."

- Baha'u'llah

Leia Mais…

Stranger in a Foreign Land

I wish I had the energy at the end of the day to do a better job of blogging but by the time I get home and cook something for dinner I'm so tired that all I want to do is eat, watch some TV and go to sleep. It's an incredibly pathetic routine for someone my age, even considering how much of a natural home body I am. However, I do have a new found respect for homemakers!

I have to admit that life here so far has been incredibly lonely. I don't know anyone except my co-workers and only a handful of those. I have no family here and no friends in the city. For the past few weeks I have been sort of moping around. Of course I've been back and forth between here and Atlanta so much that I've hardly been allowed a grand amount of social time. Thankfully things have turned around a little bit in the past few days.

Friday was a very difficult day for me. Our trainer was heading back to Atlanta at mid-day and my co-worker was taking a half-day. This left only me and one other person in Atlanta handling calls and things. There were so many issues coming up that I wasn't trained on how to handle, coupled with our copious technical difficulties, that I was feeling a little overwhelmed and ill-prepared. In addition to that, I was instructed over lunch by the two people up from Atlanta that I'm going to find myself having to take the reins and such because apparently I am increasingly becoming more of a coordinator in addition to just ordinary customer service responsibilities (even though the coordination extends only to myself and my co-worker).

The boss came by my cubicle during one of my more despondent moods and gave me a little pep-talk for no particular reason. He is a really sincere man, so my spirits improved. I know there are too few people doing too much work for not enough pay and that has made a lot of people here very bitter, and while I don't always agree with some of the methods that are employed (already) the work we're all doing is important. It's not some mundane job in some faceless corporation.

Later, one of my co-workers came by and invited me to the movies with some other Baha'i youth. My first reaction was to decline. I told myself I would decline because I have a lot of things to get done. I haven't unpacked a lot of things and I need to go grocery shopping, change my license to Illinois, get a library card, change my voter registration, pay bills, do the laundry, etc. but I think the real reason was anxiety and fear. That is sad to admit, but it's true. I have gone so long without interacting with people my own age that I think I may have forgotten how. I've become so accustomed to interacting with people 20 years older than me that sometimes people my own age make me nervous. And then again it could be that I'm too jaded and serious minded to loosen up.

It didn't take much persistence for me to give in. We went to see the movie "Juno" which was outstanding, much to my surprise. I enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed the movie. It's unfortunate I have to force myself to do these kinds of things, especially since it's rarely disastrous.

After the movie, I came back to Wilmette for the Nineteen Day Feast, which was postponed to this weekend because of the weather during the week. Mind you it's been snowing all day so we've probably received may 3-4 inches. I walked around the corner in the snow to the Baha'i Home for the Aged, which has sort of been converted into the Baha'i Center for Wilmette. The turnout was small because of the weather (maybe 15-20 people) but it was a nice enough Feast. It really made me miss the Baha'i community back in Little Rock, namely because I know everyone there. It seemed a little awkward to be in the new community attending an event for the first time and being met with stares of curiosity. I introduced myself and I got to socialize with a few people after the consultative portion.

One of the youth (I say "youth" but it's a loose term - I should say "people in their 20's" instead) invited me to come with a group of them to The Cheesecake Factory. I intended to decline but I couldn't turn down an opportunity to get to know people in my own community. We had such a diverse group! There were two Baha'is visiting from Switzerland and New Zealand and another here on a term of service from France, in addition to maybe 8 or so other local "people in their 20's." It was a true joy to get to know some of them better, and I'm glad I went. I feel myself slowly becoming better integrated into the community and some of the loneliness and longing for community life is slipping away.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to the Baha'i Home for the Sunday shindig they have around here - a Baha'i "school" for children, classes for junior youth, study circles and a study class for adults. Hopefully I'll get to meet some more Baha'is there. I'm even mulling around in my mind teaching children's classes with one of the other youth in one of the suburbs. After you're engaged in Baha'i community life and you're away from it for a time, it feels like something is missing in your life.

Leia Mais…

A Day in the Life....

I often imagine that people often wonder what a typical day might be like for me in Chicago, even though I only got here last week and people could probably care less. Nevertheless, if you decide to continue, I will subject you to just that. Except I haven't taken pictures of my apartment yet because there are still boxes everywhere, and it is, in general, a huge mess. So we'll start with me walking out the front door:

This is Ye Olde Apartment Building, better known as Linden Crest Apartments. It was built in 1924, which makes it old (my apologies if you were born around that time but my perspective on time is pretty limited). I would say which one of those windows is my apartment but I'd hate for someone to come by and try to rob me. However, I will say that the local, one woman neighborhood watch is located in the right bottom window in the center. This lady is perched by the window at nearly all times, eyeballing you as you walk into and out of the area.

This leads out to the street from the courtyard. You have to watch out for those steps there. They're very treacherous. From here you turn left toward Linden Avenue. The rich people live across the street in those million dollar homes I'll never be able to afford.

When you cross Linden which is right on the corner, you turn left toward work and this is what you see. In the distance to the left you have the Baha'i House of Worship, which I get to see every morning and evening as I enter and leave work. There's also a grocery store across the street to the left. In fact, I pretty much never have to leave a two block radius of my apartment. There's a grocery store, two cleaners, a hardware store, my insurance agent, my work place, my apartment, two Chinese restaurants, the EL stop, and the bus stop.

This is the door to the office. We're not located in the main Baha'i National Center, which is sometimes a good thing. For instance, there's a new dress code that's been implemented, which states that men must wear ties (which necessitates a dress shirt). Since we're a satellite office away from the prying eyes of the National Assembly we manage to get away with having our top button on the dress shirt unbuttoned. Such lackadaisical behavior wouldn't be tolerated over at the main office! Sure it seems minor but trust me when I say that the increase in comfort has resulted in at least a 5% increase in productivity.

This is my cubicle. I know it looks uninhabited except for the papers everywhere, but I've only had it a week. My co-worker, Sonia, shares the space to the right. Hopefully those bookshelves will be full of books soon and I'm sure I'll soon have so many papers spread out that you won't even be able to see the desktop.

Where are pictures of my co-workers, you ask? Well, you can't fault me for not making an effort but every time I tried to take a picture of one of them they vanished faster than the speed of light. Maybe with some time I'll be able to sneak up on them and catch them in their natural environment, hunched over a desk peering into the computer screen.

One of the nice things about living in Chicago is the presence of a major international airport. Of course this presents wonderful opportunities for travel so I've been watching some of the airfares online. Today I noticed that I could purchase a ticket to Montego Bay, Jamaica ($125) for less money than a ticket back to Little Rock ($199). Of course I guess that's little surprise given how important of an airport O'Hare is. It's the second busiest in the world, and it used to be the first before 2005 when Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson took over the top spot. More than 76 million passengers passed through O'Hare last year - imagine!

Things at work aren't quite in full swing yet since so much of the operation is still based in Atlanta, so I've had quite a few opportunities to read through the news. There's been plenty of interesting stuff but the most ridiculous has been from everyone's favorite crazy South American leader, "President" Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Apparently he's gotten into a spat with the leader of Colombia, who happens to be fairly pro-American in sharp contrast to President Chavez's very anti-American stance. This has led him to question whether or not the remains of Simon Bolivar, returned to Venezuela from Colombia in 1842, are authentic. "Are those really Bolivar's remains in the National Pantheon? We're going to verify this."

That's exactly the sort of nonsense you expect to see in an African paper. It always amazed me how simple-minded politicians there would be and how they would use cheap ploys like this to strum up support among the uneducated masses. What's worse is that people eat it up. However, what's more hilarious is a goof on CNN's part. Apparently their Spanish-language channel ran an image of President Chavez with the caption "Who killed him?", which led Chavez to declare that CNN was trying to incite an assassination attempt against him. CNN apologized and said the caption was meant for a picture of Sean Taylor, a football star who was shot and killed.

These are the people who are running the world.

Leia Mais…

A School's End

I learned a day or so ago that Maxwell International Baha'i School was closing by order of the National Spiritual Assembly. It appears that it's no longer able to sustain itself financially and that, coupled with "other issues," is forcing the school to close. That's little surprise since enrollments have apparently fallen by half in the past 10 years. I'm not particularly well connected with the Maxwell community but of course you hear rumors in the wider community. Every school is plagued with difficulties but it's sad to see an institution of Baha'i education suffer from so many problems of the "real world" as it were.


I must be prematurely turning into a crabby old man for feeling like some fault is with the students. Then again I've never had a very rosy outlook on youth in the community. They're either extremely committed or woefully disobedient to the Cause. I know a lot of youth go through a rebellious stage where religion means nothing to them and more often than not they end up returning to some moral lifestyle. I can only imagine what faculty and staff members at the school must have to deal with when parents send their bad kids to the school in the hopes that they'll reform.


I don't know exactly how I feel about the school closing but I do commend the National Assembly for "daring" to take a bold step. Sometimes I feel Baha'i institutions allow themselves to be paralyzed to take a bold step forward out of fear of blowback from conservative community members. So maybe it wasn't the right decision but at least they made a decisive decision. Hmm...that doesn't seem like proper grammar.

Leia Mais…

Here, There & Back Again

Last week, I started work. Officially I work for the Baha'i Distribution Service (BDS), which is an arm of the larger Baha'i Publishing Trust (BPT). I'll be the lead customer service representative once they close down the BDS branch in Atlanta in January but up until that point I'll essentially be in training and doing on-the-job training during the transition. In addition to filling the orders that come by e-mail, fax, phone and the website, I'll be handling some of the international accounts, which should prove to be interesting.

As for the training, they are running us ragged...

By the middle of December, we're supposed to have learned what takes most people two months, so essentially we're learning at twice the pace. Last week and this week I've been in Atlanta, but next week I'll be in Chicago. Following that we go back to Atlanta for a week, back to Chicago for another week and finally to Orlando for the Social & Economic Development Conference. At the conclusion of the conference and our Christmas break, we're back in Chicago for the foreseeable future, supposedly fully trained and fielding orders.

All of this traveling around leaves me with only this holiday weekend to move into my new apartment, unless of course I wanted to try to move in on a Saturday and Sunday only. When I arrived back home on Wednesday I have to rush to pack up the few remaining things that my parents didn't pack so that on Thursday we can begin driving the moving truck up to Chicago after Thanksgiving dinner. Naturally we won't make it all the way, but part of the way is better than nothing. That gives us Friday, Saturday and Sunday to do the majority of the moving. My parents are also staying over until Wednesday so that while I'm training down the street a few other things can be done.

So far, things are going fairly well. I've been enjoying my time in Atlanta, although the near constant traveling and stress of wrapping up things at home is wearing on me. Nevertheless, the friends here in Atlanta are all a joy and despite some tedious moments of training now that we're all getting to know one another better there's a great deal more humor involved (which of course I enjoy!).

The hectic pace is keeping me on my toes, but I'm really very much looking forward to moving into my own place! My eye is surely on that prize.

Leia Mais…

A New Beginning

I've decided to pick up blogging here again. Everyone seemed to enjoy it during my time in Africa, so I thought I'd continue the tradition of cataloging new steps in my life. Next week I start work at the Baha'i Publishing Trust, which will necessitate a move to the Chicago area. It will be my first "real" job, as well as my first time living away from home. People seem to think that my time in Africa will have prepared me well for being on my own but I know it didn't provide me with the sort of practical experience that would assist in a place like Chicago. But I'm steeling myself for a lot of baptism by fire, which I know is soon to come!

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to Chicago with my parents to try to find an apartment. Next Tuesday I leave for Atlanta for training. It's a little unclear at this point how long that might take, but I was encouraged to find a place in Chicago "as soon as possible." Since I'll be working during the week starting Tuesday with only the weekends off (flying back and forth between Little Rock and Atlanta), I've had to give myself a crash course in apartment finding so that hopefully we can pin down a few leads up there between tomorrow and Sunday. Aside from scouting out the area, it will give my parents an opportunity to visit the Baha'i House of Worship and see the area where I'll be working and living, which I hope will ease whatever anxiety they may have about the move.

Incidentally, I won't be living and working in Chicago itself. I'll actually be working in a little town called Wilmette (also home to the Temple) and hopefully living in either Wilmette or Evanston. My goal is either to live within easy driving distance or near enough to public transportation that I can take the EL or bus to work. Thankfully, the office is half a block from an EL stop so that simplifies things. It's actually a great relief to me that I won't be forced to live and work in Chicago. While I enjoy the amenities of a large city, I don't necessarily think I'd enjoy living in one. The Wilmette/Evanston area (especially Wilmette) is a pleasant area, largely residential, with tree-lined streets and nice little shops and restaurants. It's far more reminiscent of my home town than a place with the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago. But it's a comfort to know that all the greatness that is the city is only half an hour or so away so that a young person like me who is supposed to be (in theory) enjoying life can partake in all that the city has to offer.

For all the excitement of leaving my home and striking out on my own for the first time in my life, it's still a little bittersweet. I've lived here all my life (save a brief jaunt to Tanzania) so I have a certain attachment to the place. The South is a very unique place filled with unique people and unique experiences, and I'll be hard pressed to find its warmth and comfort in a place like Chicagoland. I'll also be leaving the Baha'i community in which I've essentially been raised (in the Faith), where I've served side-by-side with loving people for four years now. They are very much like my family and leaving them will be just as difficult as leaving my actual family.

But still the excitement outweighs the anxiety and the worries, the sadness and the reluctance to leave behind everything you know. As `Abdu'l-Baha said, "A moving object is a living object whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead." It seems that I've been "as dead" long enough, so here's to movement and life.

Leia Mais…

Monthly Mish Mash

"Work for the day of Universal Peace. Strive always that you may be united. Kindness and love in the path of service must be your means."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

I have absolutely no idea what to say but some impulse is driving me to make a post, so I guess things will come as a matter of course. And evidently I'm turning posting into a monthly affair!

The beginning of this week I actually made it to the movies with one of the Baha'i youth. We saw "Dreamgirls," which was quite good. I enjoyed the play a great deal when we saw it at The Rep, but I was afraid that Beyonce would really ruin the movie. She can't act her way out of a paper bag, and I can't stand the sound of her voice. Nevertheless, she did a good enough job that it didn't ruin the rest of the movie. She even sang passably well.

It was so nice to get out of the house without my parents or going to school or going to something that you might as well call work. My social network has collapsed in on itself like a neutron star with practically everyone I know graduated and moved away or something to that effect, even sometimes driven away or forgotten by my own lack of attention. Unfortunately, my university is so non-traditional that it's a bit difficult to forge any sort of friendship. Everyone (myself included) comes to class and then goes back to their other life. Campus life exists in an odd sort of form, but I did the extracurricular activities thing in high school and now I feel too old for them or maybe just uninterested altogether.

My damnable glasses have broken again. They broke in Africa, so I bought another pair and now these have broken. I guess the arms of glasses aren't made to be particularly durable or maybe I'm just especially rough on them. I'll go the weekend being essentially blind because our optometrist is closed until Monday. I'm supposed to be doing a theatrical sort of thing at the Baha'i Centre for our third Sunday devotionals, so now I'll be holding the script in my face and peering at the audience!

Mitra just sent an e-mail about making breakfast on Saturday morning, which conjured up nice memories. I was always hours behind everyone else for breakfast on every other day of the week but I tried to make it for Saturday and Sunday breakfasts, mostly because they were substantially later. I can recall rolling out of the mosquito net, tossing on some wrinkled pajamas and jostling down the stairs, hitting the third (?) from the top which was loose and always made a noise in the process. Put a tea bag in the cup, pour in the hot water, grunt a greeting to everyone, grab a chapati, snag a chunk of homemade cheese, spread it out, put on some eggs, put on some bacon or avocado if we had them, and slowly begin to wake up. So often life here seems to be ordered around things, appointments. It's sort of irritating sometimes.

This evening I went to dinner with my parents (Friday tradition), two aunts and an uncle. My mother had originally planned to go to Ireland with my two aunts and another friend. Then the plan changed to me and my father meeting her in Scotland after Ireland. And now things have changed altogether, and we're discussing the possibility of the whole family going to Ireland and Scotland. It will certainly be the most grandiose vacation we've ever taken and, as my aunt pointed out, probably one of the last we will take together as a family. I'm really looking forward to it myself, and I know my mother is definitely excited about it.

Today, I received a package in the mail from a friend of mine in New York. She mailed me a big batch of cookies as her contribution to my "war on homework." This was a greatly appreciated gesture, and it's these random acts of kindness that temporarily lift your spirits and keep you happy and hopeful.

At least until your glasses break. =P

Leia Mais…

Hail to the Chief

"Until all nations and peoples become united by the bonds of the Holy Spirit in this real fraternity, until national and international prejudices are effaced in the reality of this spiritual brotherhood, true progress, prosperity and lasting happiness will not be attained by man."

- `Abdu'l-Baha

I have been having some really weird dreams about Tanzania. Last night I had a dream about returning to Tanzania. I guess the premise was that I'd only returned to the U.S. for a short period of time like I did in August and now I was returning to my service post. For some reason I thought I was supposed to return on January 29th but then someone told me I was supposed to have gone on January 23rd. I completely tore up my room in a horrible panic looking for the ticket and then when I finally found it, the ticket - for AtlanticAir, does that even exist? - said January 23rd. ThenI woke up!

A few nights ago, I dreamed I was elected the President of Tanzania. Apparently there was a national sensation about a mzungu (white person) being elected to the presidency. I was busy going around Dar es Salaam visiting the homes of the Baha'is trying to figure out if I was allowed to be a Baha'i and president at the same time. I remember visiting so many of the friends. Some of them were happy about it, some of them were upset and others were just flat out yelling at me, as if it were my fault I was elected.

Anyway, while I was in Tanzania I tried to keep up with the countries and states of origin of the people who were visiting my blog. It was interesting and encouraging to me to see how many "international" visitors there were because I know first hand how much of a change in attitude toward the world you can have just by exposure to people of different cultures, even if it is through personal thoughts and other sorts of exposure that blogs can provide. You can also draw a lot of conclusions by looking to see which countries visitors came from - most were in the developed world or countries where there is an emphasis on information technology (India, China, etc.). There are huge gaps when it comes to Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America and Southeast Asia. An explanation could be that the blog is in English or something to that effect, but still I think it's interesting to see what might be construed as the lack of diversity in the diversity of people who visited!

I've made some little maps here of the countries and U.S. states of origin of a lot of the people who have visited the blog. For those of you who are uncomfortable with the idea of trackers and what not, don't worry! It's not like it tells me who you are. =P It just says what country of U.S. state/Canadian province you're from and the town you're in. That's it!

Leia Mais…

Adjust Your Vision

"O Man of Two Visions! Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved."

- Bahá'u'lláh

Well, I'm feeling considerably better about school now. I met with the new coordinator of my degree programme last week, and I feel confident that he's going to actually take the department places. Before, everything lacked the sort of energy, optimism and forward movement that he's been able to bring. His classes are engaging but more importantly I can tell already that he genuinely cares about the students in the programme. We've already basically remapped my degree to be more in line with what I want to do, and we're working on some programmes to where I'm not limited to the very limited language offerings at my university to satisfy the fairly hefty language requirements for my degree. The fact that he's helping the students focus themselves on creating a degree that will offer practical assistance when we get into the "real world" is one of the best things that can be done at our university with so many non-traditional students, and I'm really pleased that he's securing money for us to study abroad and attend various conferences around the country on relevant topics.

I'm going to be concentrating on education and development for my degree, and I'm seriously thinking about a minor in Middle Eastern studies. I imagine that will take me to the Middle East at some point for study abroad. The coordinator is in the process of studying Arabic, which I think would be a fantastic if complicated language to pick up. I'd much rather learn Persian, but I think the opportunities for that are fairly limited since it's probably not safe for me to go to Iran, not least of which because I'm an American and a Bahá'í.

Speaking of which, just as important to me was the professor's respect for me as a member of the Bahá'í Faith. He has included "activism" as part of the requirements for the class, which sent up a red flag for me because we're not supposed to get involved in these sorts of political charged debates and activities that seem to dominate "activism" on college campuses. After he listened to my reasoning, he explained that I didn't have to participate in anything that would put me a position I wasn't comfortable with and that the activism of the class wasn't politically oriented.

In addition, when I introduced myself to the class, he encouraged me to identify myself as a Bahá'í (I'm still a little shy to do so after returning from a country with such a large and sometimes hostile Muslim population that it wasn't always safe or appropriate to do so) and explain the Faith to the class when he discovered that so few of them had ever heard of it. He encouraged the same thing during our Model Arab League/Model United Nations team meeting this evening and asked me to specifically highlight my year of service in East Africa and my reasons for doing it. It's important to me that he's so enthusiastic about exposing the students here in the traditionally religiously conservative South to something that's different from what they've heard and seen not just because more people know about my religion now but also because it helps broaden the vision in a place where vision tends to be quite willfully narrow.

Leia Mais…

The Struggle

It's 2:45 AM, and I can't sleep. Unfortunately I'm very poor at regulating my sleeping pattern. There's always something that keeps me up late and then I end up sleeping in late, which throws the whole schedule off the next day. It's a vicious cycle.

Every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day there's some depressing story plastered across the washingtonpost.com website, which serves as my home page. This year it indicated that something like 15% of college students think that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is about abolishing slavery. Maybe 15% isn't a very large number of students, but should we have anyone going into college without knowing what that speech is about? If they've managed to live 18+ years of their lives without that fairly simple piece of knowledge then it makes me wonder what else they don't know.

At any one given time at my university there are probably more remedial writing and mathematics classes than the entry-level writing and mathematics classes themselves. It's just mind-boggling to me how people have gone through at least 12 years of education without gaining fundamental writing and mathematics skills. And I do mean fundamental - it doesn't take a Faulkner to get into Composition I or an Archimedes to get into College Mathematics. What's more there are three levels of remedial classes and apparently people have had to take all three of them before being able to take the actual class itself. The obvious exception to these sorts of things is people with a learning disability, but there aren't enough people with a learning disability to account for all of these remedial classes.

Speaking of university, it's amazing how much we have to spend on textbooks. I've spent at least $250, which is cheap because some of the books I already had because my university's professors are too lazy to use updated material and stay on the cutting edge, preferring instead to use the same transparencies (not even PowerPoint) for at least a decade before realizing that information changes. I understand that some Virginia congressman is trying to create something like a digital database of textbooks, which I suppose is a good idea. What would be better would be policy makers finally recognizing the value of college education and putting enough money into helping students get there, giving them a proper foundation before they get there and insuring that there are high standards for the quality of education at the institutions themselves. I know a few tenured professors who need the boot!

I have honestly struggled to go back to school this week. I don't know if it's because sometimes it seems like an exercise in futility or I'm afraid to go back after taking the Africa break or just downright disillusionment or something else along those lines. Mitra's advice was to take the bit between my teeth and show them who I am, which really seems to be the best way of going about things if only I could find that necessary "oomph" to get going. I keep trying to remind myself of all the African friends I made who wanted so desperately to attend university, but there's just some sort of intense malaise that's settled over me that prevents me from getting fired up about anything.

Leia Mais…