Bringing in a Couple of Years of EXPerience

In Istanbul. I present a rewritten version of Arlo Guthrie's Coming Into Los Angeles to describe my trip.

Coming from the ANTA
From over the pond
Flying in a spacious airliner
Films I haven't seen all over the plane
Too bad I'm not going to China

CHORUS: Coming into Istanbul
Looking for an XP Full
We don't have a President Gül
To visit Turkish Night

The metal detectors in the European Union
Seem to be turned way up high
Pulled to the side by an Amsterdam guard
Felt way too far up my thigh

CHORUS

Turkish dude holding an AIESEC sign
Behind the terminal divider
Feels like I'm home
And I've known all along
That this would end "luggage SURVIVOR"

CHORUS

Coming from the ANTA
From over the pond
Flying in an Airbus airliner
Now it's time rock the Marketing team
And prove myself an ER diviner!

Man I'm exhausted. Before I forget, if I haven't repped him before, I'm repping him now: Czech out Isaac's Tunisia blog. And while you're at it, czech out Brett Davenport's blog.

July Wades Into

Still nothing on the job front. Still working.

Istanbul looms ever closer - I leave Monday. Of course I'm very excited about that - but I'm quite unprepared for what comes after September 3rd. I don't even have a plane ticket out of Turkey. Do I need to pack for warm weather or cold after that date, based on the place in which I don't know I'll be? But for certain, many changes will occur there. Seeing all the old friends and making hundreds of new ones, and working in a way I've never worked before will prove rewarding I'm certain.

I'm pleased that someone with whom I've tried to redevelop a good relationship has responded very warmly to it, and we now hang out quite a bit. I'll miss it while I'm abroad.

I have recently finished two books which I found particularly interesting on the subject of the economy and the way it affects our livelihood and builds our society. They are The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. I finished The World is Flat in Europe, and picked up Deep Economy in Frisco and finished it on the Hawaii trip. I learned a lot from Friedman's book and I agreed with - and was excited by! - much of what the book establishes and predicts, especially in relation to the prospects of the post-capitalist economy. As was to be expected though, Friedman's viewpoint was taken from the prevailing paradigm of study and instead of getting excited about things like Free Open Source Software, he asks in an almost frightened way "When are the right people gonna get paid for it!" McKibben's book, however, was of a different subject and nature altogether - a very refreshing one. Deep Economy, in the vein of Ishmael, is about changing the very way we live and build our economy in favor of slowing (or even stopping) growth, and focusing as much as possible on local networks and sources to produce everything from quality food to culture and entertainment. I will think and search for a long time for the place in which the global, approaching-egalitarian world described by The World is Flat meets the local and sustainable world urged by Deep Economy. I also had many problems with the way that Friedman's description of our own economy didn't care much of any bit about sustainability or cultural quality, and had quite the assumption of superiority - perhaps it would be better to say the lack of an assertion of equality. This is most notable in the way he portrays Indian business executives smilingly and enthusiastically explaining to Friedman that the "place" for Indian IT workers is in call centers, while the "place" for American and "Western" workers is in more dynamic and powerful fields, like consulting and design. I have this lone wanderer-hero to thank for introducing me to the concept of sustainability, which is growing in my personal interest and will probably develop into a life-quest by the time I leave Georgia Tech.

The days inch on by leaps and bounds. But we'll fight for that inch.

Sal and Dean on the Move

Whilst walking with my uncle and his wife on Sunday on the way from an Indian lunch to the SF Museum of Modern Art, the Random() class of this part of the multiverse decided to throw a Jawanza-type object on the street corner. I saw him walking steadily perpendicular to my path but had I not stopped, recognized his unlikely face and called his name twice (while Gloria, attentive as hell, snapped a photo of the moment), we would have collided instead. I had not seen him since CONA in 2004, and marveling at the serendipitous meeting we agreed to have coffee that evening, which we did, and it was good.

The fam arrived in Hawaii yesterday, Monday, and we gorged ourselves at the hotel restaurant and I fell asleep for three hours before we went to a luau for dinner. It was some of the best pork I'd ever had in my life, probably the best pulled pork hands-down. I flung some more emails groping for an acceptable job this fall.

Today was relaxing by the beach, my sister and I took an hour-long surfing lesson which was cool but there were a lot of rocks at the bottom of the water and I cut open my foot at one point, but what the hell is a good learning experience if you don't bleed a little bit? We tried to hike Diamond Head to see the sunset tonight but the park closes at 18:00. Instead we drove around and saw the wealthy suburbs around Diamond Head and Waikiki.

Today I also finished Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, which was not only great and had been too long since I'd read Kerouac but reminded me of the way that On The Road in the summer of 2004 kind of saved my soul. I've still got Big Sur on tap, but right now I am reading a book called Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, which I'm finding quite good and should be read by anyone who thinks they want to do a damn thing about this state we're in the same boat, brother. I also snagged a book about the politics of Einstein and another one by Zinn.

What more to come, when I'm in that place for a week where there's nothing to do but stew and worry and solve problems or worry some more, or watch movies and resurrect old friends.

Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies, I sat and watched you bleed

I am in San Francisco with my entire nuclear family. This is the last foreseeable time we'll be able to vacation like this, and it's the primary reason I returned to the US between Valencia and Turkey. It's pleasant to be with them and do the touristy things, but it also kind of chafes the nomad anima inside of me. I'd like to go visit a student radio station here and see how they roll.

Today while we were on layover in Dallas a plane full of US troops landed and as they entered the airport the entire concourse cheered loudly, for ten minutes, as they walked past. I wonder what it will sound like when they're home for good.

We ate dinner with my uncle and his wife tonight on the Wharf, it is always nice to see them. He was a GT alum in the '60s. Tomorrow we'll hang around together and visit with his daughter and her boyfriend, who are living in Chinatown as she gets a Ph.D. at Berkeley in environmental science. I wonder if I'll ever be that good.

The wifi here sucks and the cool bay wind is blowin' in. It's time to move on to dreamland.

Asphyxiation

I never got culture shock in Spain. I wondered if that meant I was special or if it only existed for the weak of heart.

Reverse culture shock, however, is a bitch.

I arrived back in the US on the evening of July 1, after spending the last hour of 18 hours of travel in a holding pattern over bad Atlanta skies. Finally I made it safely on the ground and my old roommate Eric and I went to get our promised (rather, his promised) Steak and Shake. It was delicious. I had many meetings with Georgia Tech advisors and officers the next day and it significantly affected my actions and plans for the fall - I had looked forward to applying for a CEED for AIESEC Ecuador, but that won't be compatible with what I must do - if anyone can help me get an electrical or computer engineering job in a Spanish speaking country that last at least 14 weeks and starts no earlier than September 5, let me know.

Dave and I returned to the City of Gadrock the morning of the 3rd, stopping for an obligatory and delectable Pop's Charburgers milkshake on the way. We got many piled up in the cars to go down to the original Jefferson's in Jacksonville, AL only to find that our once-dank hideout was now remodeled in the style of, as Dave calls them, "shitty nice Jefferson's." The wings of course were as delicious as ever, but it forever buried the need to go to Jville ever again for us. The next morning I went up to the lake to celebrate our Independence Day, and had an excellent time with some friends singing karaoke and trying to play "Piano Man." I slept at J.D.'s house there that night, since the next morning I got up at 5 in the morning and booked it to Black Mountain, North Carolina for the 40th Annual YMCA Youth in Government Conference On National Affairs reunion.

I expected a great time, and really, a great time was had. There weren't as many people as were expected, but it was still a very solid and mostly young group. As it turned out, I only knew three people who were there, but I was excited to meet new folks. Apart from socializing and enjoying Asheville, Black Mountain, and Room 230 at the Comfort Inn, we hiked the mountain and went to a barbecue festival.

Unfortunately for me, I was way too fresh off the plane and five months of speaking Spanish. I began to notice by the second day that I was unusually quiet, and by the end of that day I found that I was having a very hard time participating in any of the conversations. Chalking it up to just a bad day, I decided things would be better the next day, Saturday. This was not the case, and as I continued to be so unlike myself and not understanding why, I got really stressed and it escalated so much by the end of Saturday that I had to stand outside and breathe fresh air for a good bit of the time. I determined later through some conversations and reflection that it was a symptom of reverse culture shock, fundamentally based in the fact that when you are in another country and especially surrounded by another language, even if your conversations are about YouTube videos it is in a learning paradigm. Everything in Spain was a learning experience, not just shooting the shit on a Friday night like most comfortable conversations in the US. Since I was no longer in the learning paradigm, I was unable to recognize and connect and find where I fit in. I think I'm better now, and if I had gone to the reunion maybe two weeks after getting back then things would have been much cooler for me - although I'm really glad for the people I met and for the things I did, and I look forward to future reunions when everyone can meet who I really am.

Just as I was leaving Asheville and watching the last person fade out of view, with very strange and powerful pangs flowing through my heart and stomach, I said this aloud:

My life right now is about leaving people.

The flipside, I decided a minute later, is that leaving people is always only half of the story for a nomad. I'm moving a whole lot right now, and it is exhausting, and it will continue to be exhausting. But I'm going to Turkey at the end of July, and in September I will (if all goes well) be working in a Latin American country for the fall. In those times, my life will be about meeting people.