Thoughts on mentoring

If I feel like I've manage to establish some sort of direction for my life over the past few years, it's because of the people that I've been lucky enough to have in my life. I'm not trying to make this sound like a Hallmark card, but I'm genuinely grateful for having met the mentors who have helped me figure out who I want to be and how to get to that point.

And it's often felt like an accident. At times, I have felt very disoriented and directionless. I've been lucky that, at those exact moments, that's when I've found people who could guide me and who I could trust. I can think of two, maybe three, who have been indispensable to me, and I can't claim to have sought that out. Somehow it came to me. They have provided me with opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Now, it's important to me that I learn how to do the same. I work with people who are in the same position I was in a few years ago, and I want to know how to pass along some of the principles that I've learned. This is a new position for me to be in, and I don't know quite how to do it yet. So far, it can feel a little stilted, and I especially worry about giving criticism in a constructive way.

And now that I've been all sappy--but about something that I've been pretty preoccupied with lately--I will leave you with this inspirational video. Enjoy!

Things to Look Forward to in 2009

I can't help but feel that it's no coincidence that I completely dropped off the face of the blogosphere as soon as the school year started and I was up to my ears in master's-degree-getting. But it's a new year--and I'm out of class for the next couple of weeks--and I am re-inspired. I make no promises (to my very small audience) about whether I will continue to blog. I'm commitment-shy like that.

And to kick off the new year, I've decided to pull together a list of Just a Few Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2009.

• The end of the Bush years. When he was "elected," I was a senior in high school, just beginning to understand politics and the relationship between the US and the rest of the world. Now, I'm beyond glad to see him go, and much beyond glad to see Obama stepping in to replace him. In fact, I think Stonewall deserves some recognition here for calling the election results back in June.
• Finishing my first year of grad school. It'll be one down, two to go. The program is technically a two-year program, but since I'm balancing school and work, it'll take me a bit longer. And by the end, I'll have another degree to put up on my wall! And I'll be many many more dollars in debt. Wait! That's not something to look forward to! Strike that last bit.
• The return of Lost. This one I almost have mixed feelings about. When the season ended last year, I was nearly giddy with my anticipation for the next season. I also know that as soon as it starts, every free moment is going to be consumed with thoughts about Lost. (Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.) I'm almost nervous about getting that engrossed all over again. But, oh, I can't wait.
• Following all my favorite blogs. This isn't unique to 2009, I suppose, but I'm still excited to read these blogs everyday. So here's a shout-out to Feministing, Feministe, Racialicious, and I Can Has Cheezburger. One of those things is not like the other.

(It's been not hard to look around and see all the ways that 2009 got off to a really fucked up start, and right now I'm thinking about the attacks in Gaza. I may want to write something about that at some point, but it's not easy to process the information that I've been gathering about that unbelievable situation.)

In which I turn on the TV and get all angry.

I'm home from work today, and while flipping through channels, I've come across one of the most atrocious things I've even encountered on TV--even on MTV. They are doing an hour-long promo for the premiere of the show, Exiled, tonight. Apparently, it's a spin-off of the Sweet Sixteen series, where they take the same spoiled brats previously featured, and ship them off to faraway countries.

And of course we will undoubtedly watch them throw tantrums over having to live in poor communities where their parents' credit card will do them no good and where they are actually expected to work. Oh, and not get waited on hand and foot. What's infuriating me is, first of all, that they don't appreciate that even this experience, being able to travel abroad, is a privilege. It's a chance that they are spitting on and, most importantly, they are disrespecting and insulting the people in the communities who have agreed to host them.

This show seems to exemplify the image of the rude American, who really doesn't give a shit about anything that happens outside of this country's borders and would rather concentrate on buying more stuff. And if anything happens to intrude on that perception, it is only an annoying inconvenience. I try to believe that most people aren't like that, which is probably why this new show gets me so riled.

Maybe there's a good side. Maybe there will be some conclusion where they learn to appreciate the chance they've been giving and learn the value of interacting with people who've had different experiences. Maybe it will broaden their horizons and maybe people watching it here in the U.S. will learn something. Then again, maybe it will be just more of the same, with non-stop whining and moaning.

Stonewall's prediction for the Obama/McCain contest.

The following is at the request of Stonewall. He would like me to let the record show that he has a theory about the US presidential elections. He believes that, come November, Barack Obama will win by a landslide and that it won't even be close. And that any suggestion by the media that this will be a close contest is an attempt to boost their ratings by creating drama and suspense. Stonewall believes that in November, people will be shocked at how easily and by how wide a margin Obama defeats McCain.

Let's say I'm not so optimistic. But Stonewall insists that I put this theory in writing, so that in November when he's proved right, he will be able to point to this and show how astute he's always been. Here's hoping he's right.

Political statements on So You Think You Can Dance

Someone else must've seen that. I turned on So You Think You Can Dance, and what should I see. The guy who just danced disco (Gev), during the rehearsal segment, was wearing a t-shirt with an emblem of one of the famous Abu Ghraib photos, the one with the hooded man standing with his arms slightly apart. And across the front of the hooded man's silhouette was a stained American flag. I'm sure it was a deliberate statement on his part. Now I just wonder how or if people will react.

Thoughts on fears almost forgotten

I decided to break out my iPod on the subway today, tuning into the podcast NPR Driveway Moments. I don't know how long this particular radio story had been languishing on my iPod, but I am glad that I finally got around to it. It's long, almost 25 minutes I think, but completely engaging.

The host asks him whether he was afraid of dying, and while he did say that he really did not want to leave this life, he said that he wasn't afraid. All of the things that people worry about when they think about death--feeling pain, being alone, being afraid--he said that he didn't occupy himself with those thoughts.

I found myself thinking a lot about my father and about when he was sick a few years ago. There is a world of difference between how Gottlieb feels confronting the possibility of death, and how I felt confronting the possibility of my father's death. Thankfully, in the end, he was fine, and he's healthy and strong as an ox today. But at the time, all I felt was pure, unfiltered terror. We knew that something was wrong, but no doctor seemed to be able to tell us exactly what it was. But the options that they threw around, like lung cancer, were terrifying.

Maybe it's always different for the ones who face the prospect of being left behind. My father, with his very strong personality and just with his presence, he's always been at the center of things. I could not imagine how we could begin to function without him. Any time that I allowed myself to think to the future, my imagination would shut down. It was unimaginable. And with every test they did, trying to diagnose, it felt like I was walking on thin ice. I was always afraid that the next step I took--the next test they did--would be the one where it all fell apart.

I wonder if this sounds selfish. In the middle of drafting this entry, my laptop completely crashed and I considered the possibility that it was a sign, that I shouldn't write this entry because it's too self-absorbed. I'm going to stop here.

Some thoughts on a historic night.

It was a long day at work, and I'm just wrapping it up now. I watched Hillary and Barack give their speeches tonight, and my Washington Post news alert in my email inbox confirms it: Barack did it. The nomination is his. I'm almost too tired to process this, and I'm exhausted just thinking about the months ahead. How many times we're going to rehash the same-old-same-old nonsense, about Jeremiah Wright and flag lapel pins and such. And how every step he takes will be analyzed and picked apart endlessly.

Every time I hear him give a speech, I'm on pins and needles -- and not just because I'm moved by his words. It's because I'm waiting for him to slip, waiting for a careless moment or for the words he will say that will be twisted by everyone who's also waiting for him to slip (but not with my same motivations). While all the candidates will face the scorching light of public scrutiny, I have no doubt that Obama will have to overcome the low expectations and serious misgivings of people who still view him with suspicion -- because he is a black man.

I worry that the ones waiting for him to fail are not just in the Republican camp. I worry about all the bitter (yeah, I said it -- "bitter") Hillary supporters who are angry that she's not the nominee. Are they really going to defect to McCain? What the hell is that about? Then what were they supporting in the first place? I understand that you can become invested in a candidate and feel deeply disappointed if they're not nominated. But seriously?

And a side note about the "inadequate" comment. This is the way it is going to go. Many people will assume first that he is "inadequate," and his burden -- before he can even begin to speak about the skills that make him a worthy and fully qualified candidate -- will be to prove that he is at least "adequate." For too many, there is no assumption of even basic capabilities on his part. This story is not at all new. In school, my brother (a young black male) has always had to prove that he was minimally capable before a teacher could even begin to see that he is exceptional, and some teachers never got that far. I remember in middle school having teachers who would enthusiastically congratulate me and my parents on the frankly average work that I was doing, and my parents -- already suspicious -- would point out that I was not being pushed to do any better. Maybe this is a digression, but these are the memories that come to mind when I hear people dismiss him as an under-qualified candidate or commend him for being ... "articulate."

But back to tonight's news. A few months ago, when I was seriously contemplating the possibility of a Clinton nomination, I knew that I would vote for her in a general election. That was never the question. But much as I will when I vote for Obama in November, I knew that I would have some serious reservations and that I would want to make those reservations known. But again, it was never, ever, a question of switching to McCain out of misguided anger. So I hope we can get it together before November.

How many more months?!

LOST was AMAZING tonight. I was in a trance for hours.

Some thoughts and questions:

• Sun and Jin have always been my favorites, and I have argued endlessly about whether he was dead or still alive on the island. The scene where the freighter blew up broke my heart
  
• I totally called who was in the casket! I knew all along that it was Locke! Although the events of this season did cause me to reconsider my initial guess, and I did think that is was Michael/Kevin for a while. So maybe not "all along."
  
• So they all have to go back to the island. Does that include Desmond? And now that Sun is supposedly in league with Widmore, how will that play out? Will she refuse to go with them and state her allegiance publicly? Or will she play along and then betray them?
• WHY do they have to go back to the island? Did their departure trigger some sort of cosmic rupture?
  
• What happened to Farraday and the others who were on that life raft on the way back to the freighter?
• What happened to the island? Where did it go?! And what happened after they left that was so bad that it sent Locke on a mission to the mainland?
• I think Kate is going to be convinced to take Aaron back to the island. She looked over him sleeping and said, "I'm sorry." That must mean that she's decided to do something that she thinks might not be in his best interest.

Amazing. And when does season five start? Not soon enough.

That's not a bomb she's hiding.

This is interesting.

MADRID: When she was appointed Spain's first female defense minister in April, the aspect of Carmé Chacón that drew the most public attention was not her gender, nor her rapid rise through the ranks of the governing Socialist party, but her prominent prenatal bump.

Chacón, who began leave Tuesday after giving birth to a boy, became an instant symbol of the Socialist government's commitment to gender parity in Spain, a traditionally macho society whose new equality laws are among the most progressive in Europe.

I don't know much about Spanish politics, but I can certainly buy the argument that this is a symbolic gesture meant to force a rethinking of what the military means or to signal a shift in the identity of the military. While I do have some hesitation about swallowing the idea of a pregnant woman being reduced only to her symbolic value as the creator of life, I can appreciate the effort to juxtapose concepts that we don't normally associate with each other. It also makes us question how we understand ideas of manliness and womanliness.

Women who have risen to positions of power elsewhere have assumed the mantle of "macho," whether they contribute to that image or not. In order to even attain that position, they certainly have to exhibit characteristics often associated with being a man: assertiveness, aggressiveness, confidence, independence. And here we have a woman who has presumably done all that, and she occupies one of the most typically aggressive positions in government -- but the fact that she is a woman is inescapable. Her baby bump is showing.

And this:

However, José Conde, president of the Association of Spanish Soldiers, a group composed mainly of retired military personnel, called the appointment of "a Catalan, pregnant, woman" an "insult" to the army. Catalonia, the semi-autonomous region where Chacón grew up, is viewed by conservatives as an enclave of anti-Spanish sentiment.

Which part is the "insult"? Catalan? Pregnant? Woman? All of the above? I think some people are feeling the itch of cognitive dissonance.

A love story.

Sometimes, I am overcome by the strength of my affection for Charlie. There are peaceful moments, when we sit together in silence. I am at the kitchen table, holding a cup of hot coffee between my hands, and he looks over at me with sleepy eyes and a handsome face. I remember all the times we've fallen asleep together watching TV, or the times he's waiting for me when I come home from work. Absentmindedly, I reach over and stroke his hair.

And then, this. In one moment, he's changed, and he turns his head to gnaw on my wrist, sinking his sharp teeth in and clawing at my arms. That's when I remember that he's a cat, and therefore a predator. If our roles were reversed, and he was my size and I was his size -- he would kill me. Without hesitation.

And then, just as quickly, he's ignoring me.