Spreading the gospel of Keyboard Cat

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have noticed a bit of dissatisfaction with my time here, and if you did notice it, you'd be correct. Things are moving very slowly here, which is just a bit how Colombia rolls, but there were also several interruptions: the department head was abroad for the first week, my advisor got in a car crash the second week, holidays meant the school was closed for a few days, then my step father died in the third week and I had to take a week off to go back to the US. Now there's another interruption: an enrichment week in Bogotá with all the other Fulbright ETAs. This means the main core of my responsibilities here won't have started until a few days shy of two months after I started my job. And considering I like my job, that sucks. That sucks in a very big way.

This is nothing against Fulbright. Most other ETAs are well situated in their programs by now and hopefully are having the blast I expect to be having. But it just so happened to strike at an inopportune time for me. On the other hand, it's an all-expense paid trip for a week in a nice hotel with fun people, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Lately, though, things are getting more interesting around here. This is partly because I've kicked my advisor out of the driver's seat, and now I basically go around organizing my own stuff and then tell him later. For example, this week I stopped by two different organizational meetings for the English teachers here to introduce myself, and by the time I left, I had scored myself a whopping eleven class visits!

Yesterday, I had five in one day. I spent the day running around and left the university at seven o'clock, which makes for a long day when you're up at four in the morning. By the time I got home, I was so tired I couldn't do anything but buy an arepa with cheese, stuff it down my gullet, and fall down face first on the bed and pass out. It was my most rewarding day here yet.

Even better is that I think I made a good impression on most of the teachers and students, which bodes well for getting students to come to the conversation clubs, which was my primary reason for making so many visits this week. I did my best to take another professor's advice and try to teach them about the interaction between culture and language, the kind of things that they won't find in a text book. Since they were in a technology unit, I decided to teach them about texting and internet acronyms because it was one of the more confusing things for me when I first started making friends in Spain. Like how was I supposed to know "x" meant "por"? I mean, I see why now. "Por" is used in the same sense as "times" as in "two times three is six," hence the use of a multiplication sign to stand in for it. But when you first see it for the first time, you just kind of wonder if it's a typo. 

I spent the second part of my time talking about United States internet culture, particularly different words and a few things that hadn't seem to become international phenomenons, such as the words "derpy" and "troll," explaining the internet obsession with cats (such as cat bread, grumpy cat and keyboard cat), and using the "ermahgerd" meme to explain not only explain how speech is often written phonetically on the internet ("2morrow" or "gr8") but what Goosebumps books are and how memes work in general, which ended up leading to this gem.

I was happy that I noticed that I was even teaching the teachers a few things. I noticed some would write things down so that they might incorporate some of this stuff into their future classes. It's great to think that I not only educated some students under the guise of showing them YouTube videos about cats and how to text like a pro but also helped some teachers develop their curricula further. Of course, there were some teachers who were less receptive than others to my presence, and with the ones who I sensed didn't really want me there, I did my best to just talk about conversation clubs, do a little bit of an activity, and then get the hell out of dodge. It is, after all, my way to not stay where I'm not wanted (re: New York). But if this was any indication of how conversation clubs are going to be when they start, I think we're going to have a great time. Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting around here.

I'm a fake

Since I started talking about psychology last entry, I thought I'd stick with it for one more week and talk about impostor syndrome. Every time I feel like I've take a step forward in my aspirations in life, I get a sudden attack of this mental malady. When I was in acting school, my first semester scene study teacher, the infamous Nicholas Martin-Smith, said that some people are afraid of failure (me) and, even worse, some people are afraid of success (me too as it turns out). I didn't really understand what he meant by that second bit, but years later it dawned on me exactly what that meant. I just like to call it by its fancy name.

I'm not stranger to impostor syndrome. It happened back when I was first asked to evaluate translations for the ¿What's in a Nombre? edition of phati'tude literary magazine and then again when I was asked to be the head translator for Jesus Papoleto Melendez's ¡Hey Yo / Yo Soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry for 2Leaf Press. I can remember thinking, quite vividly in the latter case, "It hasn't even been a year since I graduated. What do I know? Why are they even listening to me? Why do they have any confidence at all? I'm still a student!" Of course, what I didn't pay attention to was the other voice in my head that tried to say, "Because you graduated valedictorian of your class of a giant college in the City University of New York system. Because you came highly recommended by the head of Hunter College's translation program. Because you know you're going to work with that poetry for hours to make sure its translations are perfect." But of course, that voice never gets any airtime.

Why do I even let that voice think it's in charge?... It ain't Meryl!

So here I am now, chosen as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, and as I hear more and more about my potential responsibilities, I feel it. You see, that "assistant" part has a varying degree of weight. Some people end up running a conversation club, and others end up teaching full classes; it just depends on what the university--in my case the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana--wants to do with you. It's a private university, and I am told that that increases the likelihood of being less of an assistant and more of an independent teacher of my own classes. On one hand, this is great! It's what I want: the more independent the experience, the better. One of the reasons I applied for this fellowship was to let it be a test run for teaching in a university setting. On the other hand, independence is always a scary thing. Implicit in independence is the potential to be lost and confused (yet to find yourself), to be unsure (yet to gain self-reliance), to fail (yet to have a chance at success that is completely of your own making).

There's a lone of thought that always pops up in impostor syndrome. It's what defines it: "Why do they believe in me?" "Why do they listen to me?" "Why do they think I'm of any use?" And it's thought that impostor syndrome occurs from an inability to internalize accomplishments. I'm not sure how one goes about doing that really. What does it mean to internalize an accomplishment? That my identity and the accomplishment are somehow entwined? Maybe that makes sense to you, dear reader, but I can hardly wrap my mind around that beyond that other than what the words mean. However, I do know this: In the end, questions like those actually insult the person or people who have chosen to work with you. The idea that I've some how tricked someone says that they're gullible, stupid, inattentive, or some combination thereof, and I know I don't believe that. When I confront these implications, I can't help but to see how illogical it is.

Sidenote: I love the phrase "reductio ad absurdum" and
try to fit that little gem in whenever I can.

Reductio ad absurdum: I can't both think that these people are as qualified as I do and that I can pull a fast one on them. By seeing that what I'm thinking can't be true, my head gives my heart a helping hand out of the black morass that they wandered in to, and I'll push those voices back into the dark corner they came from. Until next time. Again and again until the time that I can greet them as an old frenemy who has just stopped in town for a visit.

Wanderlust: Am I running away from something?

Because I can't take you seriously
with all that Kool-Aid on yo' face...

Hey, people. We're gonna get a little heavy this week. Just a little. We're going to talk about wanderlust and its psychological underpinnings. I mean, I have to at some point: It's the namesake of this blog's URL.

Let's start by quoting some interesting stuff I read on Wikipedia's "wanderlust" article:

Wanderlust may be driven by the desire to escape and leave behind depressive feelings of guilt, and has been linked to bipolar disorder in the periodicity of the attacks. Or it may reflect an intense urge for self-development by experiencing the unknown, confronting unforeseen challenges, getting to know unfamiliar cultures, ways of life and behaviours.
In adolescence, dissatisfaction with the restrictions of home and locality may also fuel the desire to travel.

Interesting, right? And as one of the affected, I have to wonder: Does this apply to me? Let's start with the easy part. Yes, in my adolescence I was dissatisfied with my home and locality. This is no secret. As a gay, liberal, Pagan in Indiana, it doesn't take much to explain how out of sync I was with so many people around me. I also think that if I weren't so dissatisfied, I wouldn't have moved to New York at the tender age of seventeen. Considering I left my adolescence behind ten years ago and I'm pretty much as over it as I can get, I'm not sure that applies to me beyond mere coincidence. Besides, what person wouldn't say they were dissatisfied with their "home and locality" in their childhood? I'm not sure it's that unique.

Being chased by the "depressive feelings of guilt" monster?

Now, what I do find interesting is this: It's both possibly an attempt to run away from "depressive feelings of guilt" but also "reflects an intense urge of self-development." I've had a few people in life who I trust and whose opinions I value posit that perhaps I am running away from something. And maybe they're right. The only problem is I can't think of what that would be really. Perhaps it's the hard city life of living in one of the most expensive lands in all the land, New York City? If that's it, sure, I'm doing that, but once the shine wears off from living here, which it will do after ten years, why stay? Unless you're making theatre or a lot of money (I'm doing neither), there's not really any point for the needless struggle. I don't really think this is what they're talking about though.

But, let's pretend I am running away from some sort of emotional issue. I think this might be the symptom and the cure all at once. Why? Well, the second part, of course! Could these intense urges for self-development be the kind of thing that someone running away from their feelings might need? If you're having trouble accepting something about yourself, going through the trials by fire collectively known as "culture shock" might be just the thing to help you figure out what to like about yourself, to develop a positive sense of self that can help you face the things about yourself that you feel unable to face. The challenges of culture shock are really internal challenges of adaptation and flexibility masked as external challenges. It's about becoming a more flexible, open, and accepting person, and guess what: That applies to your own self just as much as to anything else!. It's interesting that if you're doing it for the right reasons, then this can be the thing that helps you through the problem that causes it to begin with.

I, however, like to believe that I'm not running away, but it's undeniable that I have an intense urge for self-development. Hell, I have an intense urge for career development. There's a lot of solid reasons why I'm leaving the country and taking this amazing opportunity, but I wouldn't be so motivated if I didn't think that the world didn't have a lot to show me, to show all of us who are willing to go see it. It's only by leaving your comfort zone that you really see who you are as a person. It's then that your mettle is tested, and tests--the kind that aren't graded--can be some of the best learning experiences. Like I talked in my previous post, I don't expect it to be easy, but it will undoubtedly be rewarding.

By the way, you should check out the Wikipedia article about wanderlust for more interesting tidbits about the phenomenon from the etymology of the term to how its view in sociology. It's a short but nice read!

Yes, I'm nervous, but that's okay.

When I tell them I'm going away, people, of course, ask all sorts of questions, but one always comes up no matter how well or little the person knows me: Are you nervous? My stock response is, "I'm more excited than anything," and it seems people write it off as me being naive because, despite these dark circles under my eyes and my pitch black sense of humor, I somehow still manage to come off as a sweet, innocent, optimistic sort of person. Go figure. But let me share a little secret with you, dear readers:

Yes, I'm nervous. I'm nervous as hell.

I think normally people ask this in the context of Colombia's reputation for not being the safest country to travel to, and in that respect, I am not nervous. I have full confidence that the Fulbright people in Colombia as well as the ones here in the States have our safety at the forefront of their minds and will not let anything happen to us. We have to follow some basic rules such as informing them of any travel and, for the most part, avoiding any sort of ground travel in favor of going by air, but I'm really glad to have what I see as a resource for traveling within the country. Who knows, maybe they can also give me tips on how to find cheap airfare while they're at it?

What am I nervous about? For starters, trying to make friends, which can be tough when you don't know a single person. Then there's not having danced salsa since high school and only looking good doing so because of Luisanna Rodriguez telling me what to do all the time, which wouldn't normally matters two bits except for Santiago de Cali is the self-styled "salsa capital of the world." To a lesser degree, trying to find an apartment, though I truthfully can't imagine it being any worse than New York where you have to give a deposit; first, last, and sometimes second or more month's rent; pass a credit check; have a guarantor and then sign away your first born male child to secure an apartment. But above everything else, I'm nervous about adjusting to the little daily things that can really add up.

If Ryan Gosling and Ellen came out with their
own "¡you can learn salsa, gringo!" video series,
I would soooooo buy it.

If you were around when I was still making videos from Spain, you might recall a certain little moment of frustration and hopelessness in a giant park that I couldn't find my way out of and eventually missed two classes that day as a result. It was no good. Then there was the frustration with what I perceived as needlessly complicated procedures for securing a monthly Metro pass or the maze like streets of the city that I never fully understood, or the need to journey to the one Corte Inglés that carried seitan in all of Madrid to have some sort of significant vegetarian protein intake. Those little daily life frustrations can add up, especially when you make one fatal mistake: you try to live the lifestyle you had in one location when you're in another one. It was only in my last months there that I decided to let go of the lifestyle I had become accustomed to in New York in favor for something that was a bit more madrileño, and I regret how late in the process I allowed myself to grow into my new home.

One thing that has recently caused me to be more nervous is the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, who had originally planned to go with me. It became obvious after a while that it would put more stress on us that wouldn't be good for him or me. I won't mince words and say that knowing he would be with me was a great comfort, and now that things have changed, I'm a bit more nervous than I was before. But the fact of the matter is that my desire to go and do this, to see the world, to gain experience in an upper level academic environment, to improve my Spanish, and learn about Colombian culture all conspire together to overpower that fear. It's there, asking to be heard, but in a chorus of so many voices, it can't focus on it for long. None the less, it's hard not to feel like I'll be leaving a bit of myself back here. When I think about him, that he's no

Le Petit Prince et Le Renard

longer part of my life, that we won't be able to share these experiences together, I feel something strange, like an amputee feeling limbs they no longer have. He was my partner in crime, and now, having to pull a solo heist in a foreign land, I feel a bit daunted. He was and always will be one of my favorite people in the world, and I hope we'll stay in contact even after I go, and I'll bring him news of what's happening in the southern hemisphere. It reminds me of the TV series adaptation of the Little Prince and his rose, writing letters back to his home planet to share all the things he saw and did. As the fox said to Le Petit Prince, "Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé." ("You will always be responsible for that which you have tamed.") And in that way, we'll always be connected to each other, as two hearts that, in some way, tamed each other.

Alternate woes

Before I get into it, some thanks are definitely in order. As far as I see it, this was a group effort between me and so many other people. So super special, confetti-in-the-air thanks are owed to:

• 

  Nothing says confetti like Rip Taylor
  and a mariachi guitar player

  Gabrielle David, 2Leaf Press' publisher; Maria Cornelio and Adrian Izquierdo, my former translation professors; and Michael Jackson, my coworker and friend, for writing wonderful, amazing letters of recommendation;
• Myrna Evans, Hunter's Fulbright advisor, for guiding me along the way from beginning to end;
• Nick Lazor, a good friend, all-around smart guy, and Spanish language and culture enthusiast, for being the final eye on my essays;
• John Nolan, a friend who has pushed me from the very beginning to get out of my soul-sucking night job and find one that will really excite me; Rene Ugarte, venezulano extraordinaire whose patience with me knows no bounds; Susan Trowbridge, the Colombian aunt of Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller (who is the paternal grandmother of my niece); and Amy Obermeyer, a friend and comparative literature PhD student at New York University doing some really cool research concerning the relationship between Japan and Latin America (ask her about it sometime), for giving me challenging practice interviews in English and Spanish, which proved to be ample preparation;
• and of course Jesse Hicks, my boyfriend, who deserves a special beyond the call of duty sort of mention because he had to live with me and bare my neuroses over the six month waiting period. This goes double for the week that I hung in alternate limbo.

I couldn't have done it without all these people's help and the emotional support of a lot of friends, family, and even strangers sent to me by fate who would say a strange comment here and there that inspired me to stay hopeful. And I did stay pretty hopeful... until I got the email notifying me of my placement status.

I was in the middle of San Loco in the East Village drinking a Modelo after a very satisfying and very large burrito with guacamole when my phone flashed with an incoming email. Before I could even open it, the big "A" in the subject line had slapped me in the face with their decision: Alternate. The burrito nearly made its escape from my stomach on to the table and down Saint Marks Place right then and there. After six month of waiting since turning in my application, there was the answer. Out of the blue. Right there. One minute waiting, the next minute: Pow! Right in the kisser!

Footage of me in
the San Loco bathroom

I told Jesse, and I think he might have been more shocked than I was. I excused myself to the bathroom where I promptly started to imitate Shelley Duvall in The Shining. In a moment of desperation, I prayed to anyone who would hear me, “Please let me get it!! Please let me get it!!” As a Buddhist, I had written off prayer, at least in the sense of a sort petition, as something that increases your attachment to desire rather than frees you from it. I think I changed my mind that day. Sometimes you need to say something out loud to whomever or whatever will listen in order to really let it go. These little daily lessons. They come to us suddenly like that. Just as suddenly as watching all your dreams potentially fall through, like that slow-motion moment right before the glass of red wine you bumped falls on the white carpet.

By the time I had left the bathroom, I had pulled myself together. I don't think anyone had noticed the harrowing freak-out I had in the bathroom, but I was still undeniably upset. Jesse suggested a taxi home, and uncharacteristically, I gave in pretty easily. Unfortunately, it was around five o'clock, and if you've been running late at five o'clock in Manhattan, you know that's the time you will have to elbow an old lady for a cab, if you can even find one at all. And we didn't. I rode the hour home doing my best not to cry on the street, at the ticket machine, on the subway platform, on the train, anywhere with foreign eyes. I made it home with most of my remaining dignity and fell asleep and slept for twelve hours.

I called out of my graveyard shift job proofreading financial documents. I was in no mood for that. I was in no mood for French class the next day. I was in no mood for anything. It was Depression City, USA, population one, no trespassing allowed. Wednesday my loan repayment plan was denied. Friday I got sick with the flu and had to call out of more work. It was an all-around bad week.

This sums it up well.

So imagine my surprise when only a day and a week later, it all changed around! I was, once again, stunned. Since I woke up late for French class then had the gym and work directly after, it was only mid-document, at about 3:30 a.m., listening to Imagine Dragons' “On Top of the World,” that my eyes misted over because I realized my dream had in fact come true.

Why do I write all of this you ask? Because sometimes alternates do get selected. And sometimes your dreams do come true when you least expect them to. And I wanted to remind you all of that. It's the least I could do.

(Videos = hard)(Restarting blog = good)

So, welcome back for some of you, and welcome for the first time to others. As you may or may not remember, this blog used to be a chronicle of my six months studying abroad in Spain. It consisted mostly of videos I would make talking about my experiences and recording some things I would see around Madrid. I abandoned the blog before leaving Madrid because, well, as it turns out videos are really, really hard. Not just for me to conceptualize and execute but apparently also on my computer, which started emitting a sound that could be called nothing other than a death rattle and was destined to survive only about four more months.

Photo of me at work editing a video

Videos are also time consuming. It started to become obvious to me that all the time I spent compiling shots, editing them together, and rendering the video into formats that could be used by your average internet voyager, I could really be out making the most of the time abroad. I actually hated taking as many pictures and videos as I did back in Europe because I think they destroy the beauty of—hold on a second while a take a picture—What was I saying? Oh right, the beauty of the moment. But I desperately wanted to share everything with friends and family back home who I knew would never get the time or opportunity to leave the country. I think one of the biggest problems with the culture of the United States today is that no one is leaving it. I don't mean permanently, but the globalization of our planet is inescapable and it's much better having at least a vague idea of what's out there than growing to fear it as the unknown, a fear which others will often use to manipulate to their own ends. But I digress.

You, or we, should probably get used to that though. The whole digression thing. This unfortunately won't be the last time.

I'm writing this on a train. It's a pretty magical thing. Not only do all the workers seem like happy and pleasant people, you can look out the windows to see something interesting at any point, and I can only feel like this is a wonderful cosmic moment: to be writing about traveling while traveling, to be in motion while writing about being in motion.

See I did it again.

 In any case, I'm reviving this blog again because I found out (after a long and tortuous wait that I'll talk about next post) that I was selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Colombia. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog about linguistics and multi-multiculturalism for some time, and this seemed like a good excuse to do it. I plan to be a bit nomadic for the next couple years (with any luck I'll be able to write some interesting stories about being in France, Japan, and hopefully back in Spain over the next couple years), so you can expect all sorts of global tidbits and misadventures. And though I may not be doing too much in the way of videos anymore, I do plan to write and add a few pictures to make up for whatever boring moments come along in a post because everyone likes pictures. 

Beautiful