Leaving on a jetplane...

This is not a holiday, not a sabbatical, and not exactly simply a study tour. In a way it is the natural pace of life for me. New places, people, experiences, and ideas are more vivid in motion. In order to turn up the volume of these next few weeks, I'm leaving the screens at home: no ipod, no laptop, no fancy phone. Its just me & my thoughts in the world. Where in the world? Darwin, Vietnam, Singapore, and a weekend stopover in Newcastle and the Blue Mountains. It's a bit more of a planned adventure than my usual. Maybe that's what 'growing up' means to me.

My lectures in Vietnam are the primary reason for this country hop. Despite the fact that I will probably spend the first few days scared to eat anything, don't speak a word of Vietnamese, and am allergic to the sun now, I have a good feeling about the weeks to come! The unit material is dense but intriguing. Funny to think we are going to one of the backpackers' party havens to have lectures, discussions, then observe them in their 'natural environment' by night. I'm making every attempt possible to not have expectations, but of course that's easier said than done. I expect to get sick at least once, to learn a lot, to write a lot, and hopefully come back in one piece...albeit a slightly different one.

As for the informal education components of this trip, crocs, snakes, many coffees with couchsurfing friends of the future, and who knows maybe even a late night pash out of the blue. On the road, anything is as possible as you let it. That's the perfect entropy of time and space disregarded. Practicing being in the moment, of the moment, and completely with the moment is one of the main objectives of this experience. I have this hankering feeling I've been missing something big but it's still here. I just don't know how to look. Maybe the shift in vantage point will help.


The next time I find myself in a proper bed will be Tuesday in a hostel in Hanoi. The next meal I enjoy will be filled with warm top end sun and anticipation of the cage of death. The next time I see my classmates it will probably be in a hostel bar. The next time I hear familiar beats and rhymes will be live in Newcastle. And the next time I return home to this room, this house, this screen I will be many new places richer and that much closer to whatever it is I'm meant to aspire.

My Own Personal, Impromptu 'Slut Walk'

Last night, well 4 am, as I was cheerfully walking home after a fantastic night of music, dancing friends, and conversation when some guy in a beat up ute (mini pickup truck for my American readers) yelled, "F*#k'n slut" out the window as he drove by. Honestly, it more saddened me than anything. What does this guy hope to achieve from behaviors like that? Why is walking down a street, at any hour, a sluttish behavior? If I lived in a culture that showing your hair or being an unaccompanied female was abhorrent, maybe. But I don't. And frankly, I don't think anybody should. If anything, by the fact that I was walking home alone at 4am on a Saturday morning it was pretty apparent that I would be enjoying my bed solo. Maybe he found that offensive. All I can hope is that bro-charming there and his classy wheels made it home safely but does not have the opportunity to reproduce or raise more little car calling men. It made me think, can we make sperm bank donors pass an etiquette/basic human civility test? If we haven't thoroughly tested if this type of behavior is possibly inherited and not solely learned...it can't hurt. This event didn't make me feel threatened or vulnerable, as this guy was obviously just an idiot who probably shouldn't have been driving and definitely should not have been talking. In some ways he is just as much a victim as any of us for wondering about the world guided by the kind of negative ignorance that leads one to such actions. That can't be pleasant. I only wish there was a look, a song or an image that could tap into every man, and for that matter, every person's emotional memory and remind them of one time when their mother or maternal figure used her feminine strength to make them feel safe, strong, and loved. For the time being, all we can really say is, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"Or in this situation, "Shut up and drive" would've sufficed.

Transient Perpetuity

Priorities, perspective, perception

Direction. It is all connected

Where do you come from? Where are you going? But above all, who are you right now? Do you think how you dream? Do you even remember your dreams?

What's with all the questions? Was there a time in your life when questions sometimes outweighed declarations? Why should the questions slow down?

Things are changing, always. We are things, so aren't we?

Value is subjective, so what is the universal quantifier? Why so much value on the qualifiers?

All the answers are right here at our fingertips, we just need to interpret. These silly machines we live in don't come with instruction manuals. Trial and error, here we go.

What's the best that could happen? Only one way to know.

Never Cut to a Closed Door

Time is of the moment and fleeting fast so pardon the unpolishedness but here's the deal:

It's hard to say what's different or why, I should say. Maybe its the NLP, maybe its the new place, new people, new priorities or we can just blame the moon, this is not the town I landed in six weeks ago. Well, it is but it looks, sounds, and feels pretty different. Last night was an amazing convergence of worlds; slam world, Oz hip hop, and Australian ecology/sustainable development...all in one room with a generous helping of glorious glamrock. It goes to show how anything is truly possible when you start living by the immortal words of the great Tiny Fey always follow with "Yes and..." While she is talking about rules for successful improv sketches, I think this is applicable as generalized life advice (until STDs or police could be involved, lets say). 

I just need to sleep less, write more, read more, laugh more, and definitely dance way more. Those years exploring the scientific viewpoint were invaluable but its time to remember that its just that ONE perspective and there's still so much more to delve into. But what gets people through the good times, the tough times, the seemingly impossible: the outer limits of our brains, not how well we've trained them to follow somebody else's rules. Its a mind-boggling expansive void of creative energy that we all reside in. And you can't see, hear, smell, taste, feel, think or know that which you don't believe in. Pausing to really take it in will hopefully lead to future creative ventures. 

When I say "I used to....this and I used to that" the flaw in that is assuming time is a barrier not an opportunity builder, which of course its the latter. Finding the lesson in every path that starts with "Yes, and..", polishing it into a productive, funny, and enlightening story-nugget and figuring out who to share it with is the present task at hand.


Sidenote: I met Tim Flannery last night. It was pretty ordinary but my internal dialogue was going a mile a minute. If you don't know who he is, look it up. He's kind of a big deal. 

Back in the Day...but Why?

"So, What's your art form?" A simple enough question but I was completely without an answer. The funny thing is I started writing something a few days earlier that directly addresses this concern. 

All Grown Up 

I used to:
        not care so fucking much

Dance like...well...just dance 'cause it was fun       felt good     made sense 

Write poetry      and love it  hate it  then do more 

Talk to Everyone    I thought that's why we're here

Laugh out loud when something's funny

Insist that I was beautiful    NOT cute 

Grab snakes and ask questions later  ....ok, maybe not the best practice 

Know that Oz wasn't just some mythical place in a book   but my real life future home

Believe all words were good     until I got in trouble for using certain ones 

Run around naked   whenever I could   cause it felt good, natural, free....Safe 

Think love was just a good thing 

Life was full of potential and music and dance and theater and poetry. 

The buy-in for this adulthood thing isn't what I was sold.
These self-constructed walls need to see the light of fire,
as the 6-year old me dances all night to some Commitments, Chuck Barry, and Stray Cats.

At this point in time....

"If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires."
-Abigail Van Buren

First off, my apologies for the extended absence. The silence is not to say I've been stagnant but instead a result of an inability to coherently process the past two months. I'm trying to do something different with my life, I'm just not sure what that is exactly. Whatever it is that's currently in motion, this place that is to serve as home for the next eighteen months is filled with tall buildings, trains, trams, and way more tourists than trees. To say the least, quite the change of pace from my past few years. 

For all the places I've been, people I've met, situations I've navigated through, I'm none the wiser or better off, in my opinion. What is the value of living by the seat of your pants across three countries over the course of a few years? What's the point of the BS degree that I've completed and the title of Master that is my current investment? Really, can somebody tell me?

The thought of committing to a place, one endeavor, and the largest sum of money I've ever seen attached to my name (all in negative terms of course) is overwhelming at the moment. While living on the periphery of socialized society its much easier to judge yourself by your own standards. Once you stop and sit in a place long enough you cease to be simply an observer and it starts to impart influence on you. Influence is in the brain of the beholder, for better or worse.

Being unemployed (probably for the next 17 months), permanently single, and not particularly skilled or knowledgeable about any one thing are not viewed as advantageous traits from this angle. In a setting where pretty much everybody wants to identify you by where you come from and what you do, it is very hard to explain that you do not care to identify with your 'hometown' and have no freaking clue what you're doing. The simple version is "Immigration told me I either had to find a husband or go to University here." So here I am; that's half the battle. What to do from here is a mystery for me. Maybe I'm waiting for some sign, clue, or divine intervention. That's probably not a good plan seeing as I spend 75% of my time alone in my room reading and listening to music. Its a very one way relationship. The only one talking back is my brain...well and now my fingertips.

There is so much beauty, creativity, enthralling and gut-wrenching history in this place. There isn't a day when I'm not appreciating that but I want to be more than a paid observer. That is all I seem to be at this point. This isn't a year and a half long nerdy vacation, despite what some members of my gene pool might think. But unless I can confidently explain and show what I'm doing here, I'm just going to keep my mind on the electronic pages of tourism journals and expression to a minimum.

Beginnings and Endings Here & There

After four seasons of being a roaming naturalist, I finally feel like I'm getting good at it. So of course its time to move on to the next thing. My lack of attention to this blog as a side effect of being accepted on very short notice to a graduate program in Australia. Having only a few weeks to line up financing, deal with the visa hoops, and put all the logistics in order while also working and traveling (for work/life) everyday is tiring. Tiring and somewhat exhilarating. I know once this is all done I'll sit down at my desk somewhere in the city and think "A few hours of studying and paper writing sounds downright fun comparatively!"
So where have I been and what have I been up to the past few weeks? I've been from Yosemite to Pinnacles to Santa Cruz to Mendocino County (NorCal) and presently am driving back to DC, stopped off for a few hours in Colorado. Life moves fast but sometimes I think I can move fast enough to see it clearly. I've laughed a lot, cried a little, had to have an emergency root canal in the middle of a program, come very close to punching many raccoons in the face at all hours of the night (cooking in campgrounds, it comes with the territory), and eaten at least a dozen burritos.
The road is calling and if I have the energy to add onto this entry after 10 hours of driving, I will. But for now I will leave you with a list I've been working on:

"What I Learned at 'Science Camp' (as the kids frequently call it)"

-The quiet kids normally have the best idea of what's going on.
-Kids will always pick the worst timing to get sick and/or injured...sometimes in clusters.
-Schedules are a nice idea...nothing more.
-Expect to be surprised but wether it will be in a good way or a bad way, you can never know.
-Always downplay bleeding, it really freaks out a lot of people.
-As much as you might want to let that dumb kid refuse to drink "tap" water, after three hours of hiking around a dry, 80 degree park it will not be pretty and it will be your problem.
-The more clean and organized you keep your kitchen, the more the raccoons will keep you awake at night to spite you for it.
-Never attempt to give instructions over two minutes at a time. It will not go through.
-Always try to state directions/rules in the positive form.
    ex. "You must keep your feet on the ground at all times." NOT "Don't climb trees." Many kids/people will just hear "Climb trees"
-Keep it positive but allow for a little venting...not good to let people bottle up their steam. It will always come out eventually.
-Never underestimate the power of a well packed and well maintained cube truck!