New Decade

By this time next decade, I will be 29.

Scary. *shivers* Maybe I'm shivering because the house is 64 degrees. Mom likes it cold, especially when we come back from 90 degree weather in DR.

Regardless (while I hold back on talking about the three times I was turned away from church), I am still looking back at this decade with my own memories, perhaps a little influenced by the NYT photo reel from the last 10 years that I just watched.

So, things I remember from this decade:

1) Y2K. Nothing like a some paranoia of the occult 90's to bring in the most turbulent decade I have ever seen (emphasis on the "I"), where fears were far beyond the occult and became more orientalist.

2) I turned 10. Say hello to TWO digits.

3) Believe it or not, as a 10 year old, I almost cried when I thought Al Gore won. Hey. I grew up on a farm. And I was 10. I did not vote!

4) 9/11/2001. I was in Mr. Ferra's (?) science class in 6th grade at Highlands (one of the ONLY memories I have of that place...). Our vice principal came in and turned on a television. I watched the second plane crash into the second tower. Mom came and picked me up from school and I watched army helicopters fly over the house. Where did they come from and why did they fly so low? I was afraid, but more confused. I cried for people I did not know and began to understand the meaning of patriotism.

5) I remember seeing American flags out of every car window.

6) Watching your country invade the area of the world you would soon become more fascinated with than anything... even Barbies... is often times life shaking. In my 11 year old heart, I shook with a strange feeling of righteousness and uneasiness. They deserved it? Yes? Or were we just doing this all wrong? I could not decide. I don't know if I still can will the same strong conviction so many "seem" to have. I remember the green of the night vision goggles.

7) I went to my first school dance. I still remember the smell and some large plump girl (my age, and already having sex) offering my a cigarette. I didn't smoke it. And didn't for a looooooong time.

8) Blink 182 and Greenday came into my life, like some blast from the 90s. I loved it. I think?

9) I became a teenager. I'm now finishing out my last year of that madness.

10) HARRY POTTER, the MOVIE.

11) I remember the space shuttle crumbling.

12) They caught Saddam. I wrote an article to my local newspaper about how reporters should stop talking about Saddam's favorite snacks (Cheetos) and start telling me valuable information--true article. True Story. (Later in the decade I got a blog. Much better for voicing opinions than that local Newspaper... thought I got a lot of positive feedback!)

13) WARDROBE MALFUNCTION!!!!

14) I get accepted to Ellis. I feel like I have just gotten into Yale. Up to that point in my life, best moment ever. Determined much of what my life would become.

15) Again, I cheer when Bush wins, but a little more wearily. Ellis was rocking my world.

16) Freshman year, I learn that Aztecs did bloodletting rituals by piercing their penises. Thank you Dr. Bedell.

17) I read East of Eden and suddenly the world of literature opens its arms and gives me a big hug. The world of Academia squeezes me to death for the next 6 years.

18) I get a Myspace. Gross!

19) I meet Fahima Vorgetts and suddenly I'm helping Afghan Women and Girls by raising money for a school building for them. I set up a club at Ellis that still exists today and funds the girls with computers. Something in me changes as I find a direction for myself.

20) Hurricane Katrina. Was it true that global warming did it? I worked on building a money collection at my school to send in to Hurricane victims. I felt so helpless against nature. Environmentalism was nipping at my toes, urging me to do something.

21) This was the decade of causes wasn't it? I attend anti-genocide rallies. Host teas for Afghan Girls. Raise money for Katrina victims. Go to anti-war protests. I was quite a little liberal... even before I could drive. I would say I'm a little more right now and a little more informed, but there is something inside me that yearns for those days of freedom and beauty, when a protest could ACTUALLY change my world and the answer to such problems was as simple as a rally. I have a higher calling now.

22) I run off to Spain. There are bombings in Valencia. Mom is afraid. Beginning of my life.

23) I drive. Hallelujah.

24) My grandmother dies. For the first time, death is a strong reality. My life is shut down in Junior Year Academia. I go into the role of Vivian Bearing.

25) I get a Facebook. Problem number one.

26) Gov School. No comment.

27) I discover that I must apply to college. Multiple identity crises ensue, ending with an acceptance to Yale. I hug the UPS man. I run to my Grandmother.

28) I drive cross country to an witness insane Iraq War Vet following me (I sometimes wonder if he still is... not literally), ghost towns, poor beggars in New Mexico, the blight in trees in Wyoming. America looks sicker than Steinbeck wrote, but more beautiful and kind than I had imagined. I find a sense of wonder I had left somewhere along the line. Bubby dies. I turn 18. I graduate. One week.

29) I run away to Egypt for a while to satisfy my interests in Arabic. They are never satisfied. I go to Khan el-Khalili to eat pigeon and reminisce about the bombing that had been there when I was there, 4 years ago. I meet some of the best friends of my life. I learn more about the Arab world and have a rude awakening into the horrors of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict... on both sides.

30) Yale. Freshman year. The big choice. Obama or McCain. Guess who I chose? Dad wasn't too happy. I remember Yalies streaking, drinking, dancing, and singing in a BIG circle on Old Campus. Some professors join in the celebration.

31) I play a Jew on stage and discover that I ACTUALLY have a sense of Jewish Guilt--not Catholic. It complicates my religious persuasions, which were already unscramble-able. Perhaps it was my great-grandmother's influence on the family? (She was a Jew in a sea of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians).

32) Iranian revolutions while I'm in Turkey. I jog each night watching Euro News. The Kurdish workers who served tea in Taksim explain why they want their own country. I listen to Turks who speak the opposite.

33) An attempted terror attack from a boy no older than me from Nigeria fails. My age catches up to my conscience and realize that its my generation's turn to take the reigns pretty soon.

34) A major note, to remind you all where I'm from. THE STEELERS WON TWICE THIS DECADE. ;)

So I know there are more memories (this was my "teenage" decade yo!), but its hard to sort when you are running on very little sleep and freezing the tan off....

Here is to my 20s decade. Here is to a happy and healthy world. Or as happy and healthy as it could be.

Christmas Eve

Before I tell you about how I was turned away from a church three times the eve of Christmas eve, I would like to introduce you to my family at Christmas Eve, to give, shall we say, a striking image of the family eccentricity.

We go out on a tar and chip road to Aunt Tammy's house in the middle of ??? and beat off several dogs while we bring presents into the house. Inside is Uncle John, and his kids Jimmy and Lexi and then of course my cousins Rachel, John, and Alysha, who has a new baby to a solider who just came back from Iraq (we shared stories about Kurdish people and Falafel all night).

My cousin Rube brought his new Latvian girlfriend. They arrived just as my cousins broke me down to show them a picture of "The Mysterious Russian" I am seeing. My cousin Alysha tells me that she accidentally bought my cousins the wrong gifts (thinking they were still 5 and 7, when they were 12 and 10) saying she "Lives in the Past." Later, I argued with Uncle/Father Tim (the orthodox priest) about the gospels of the bible. I didn't win, but I think I just like to see him get all anxious (another family trait).

Speaking of family traits, my uncle brought boxes of photos and keepsakes from my deceased bubby. Inside, she still had kept the christmas cards we had made and sent to her, along with every clipping from when someone was in the newspaper. The pictures dated back to the 40's and had women with kankles in them. I surely hope that doesn't run in my line. The pictures were in an attempted organization scheme (like most Tomson organization efforts) and had a general chronological order, though my baby pictures were with pictures of my father at 15. I found another piece of evidence that I was Jewish--some distant relatives that looked like they were wearing skull caps and had sweaters where those tassles should be coming out, but were shoved up inside. My family thinks I am Jewish now too.

Present opening happens and I sort of stare into space at children as other people try to prevent them from dangers I should be seeing (like ice cubes???)--finally I get to talk about uncle T-Bone about the composition of salt; i bought him himalayan salt from Dean and Deluca's.

I'm asked to watch children for a while until I pass them off to my perhaps even more incompetent sister who passes them off to someone who knows that children cannot open pistachios. Meanwhile, some old man my aunt Tammy has cared for over the years sits in the corner in a sitting room that no one sits in and watches the Christmas tree as if it is going to suddenly take him back to some other time or place that was a lot friendlier to him.

I give the rest of my dad's Sam Adams Cherry Wheat six pack to my cousin Alysha and the Iraq vet, go through a lot more hugs (some tight and some pats), go through more hugs, and then go to the car and shoo off dogs. In the car, we pass up houses that flicker in sight between black and white pictures and now. Some still keep logs outside. Some look like "Home Improvement" or "Country Living" covers, most of which are out dated or from the 50s, when the area juuuuuust started to get electricity.

I pocketed a bunch of pictures that didn't belong to me (i.e. my family wasn't in them), mostly of the Hunkie men and of the women with kankles and keep them next to my bed, flattened in the "Confessions of St. Augustine," along with the pictures of my other grandmother, who is sipping on Coors and wearing pants in the 40s, when God knows women didn't wear pants--or at least good housewives. A stray away from the kankled women in Mosgrove, where electricity was just taking hold....

What a long way we've come.

Copenhagen Schmopenhagen: What happened?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/science/earth/20accord.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world

So Copenhagen, after months of talk and preparation finishes out its days.

Headlines:

COPENHAGEN TALKS: Climate deal faces poor nations’ fury

No joy in Copenhagen Copenhagen climate summit stumbles across the finish line unfinished Obama then says, "We have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough." What does that even mean though? What does "progress" mean? Okay, so each country will index their commitments to climate change and state what they want to cut. But who is the watchdog? Who is coercing? The most powerful countries are the biggest polluters so who is going to watch them? Then, developing (and undeveloped) countries are expected to write down their emissions cuts, but is there the technical expertise in those countries to do this task? I feel that each country is looking to the rest of the world for answers to climate change and sometimes the domestic answers are not as apparent or important. Everyone comes to Copenhagen looking for answers and the countries who they depend on answers from (China and America say) will not necessarily give them to them clearly. It results in a "step" or a "breakthrough" but to a lot of people this is not enough. Countries pledge huge amounts of money (The US is pledging $3.6 million to 2011-2012 solutions) but what does this mean? Where does it go? Are GLOBAL POLICY and charters the answer to a scientific problem? If we want to fix Global Warming, lets start at home America. Yes Obama says that we put a lot of money to that, but he also pledged a lot of money to help Developing countries go green. What would happen if that money were to go to domestic movements? After all, we are the biggest polluter.... I'm no expert though. Neither in policy nor science. Maybe I should go into chemistry instead of sociology. Biology instead of English. I still laugh at Scientific American's answer to the problem: "Is Birth Control the Answer to Environmental Ills?" My Aunt Becky thinks so.... http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=is-birth-control-the-answer-to-envi-2009-09-23 Looks like Women and Gender studies. WOOT WOOT! Oh Global Warming.

'Da Burgh

Back in the Burgh. Pittsburgh. Really quickly (as I need to shower and sleep!!!), things that have changed:

1) Panera has a new sandwich. Chicken Frontega.

2) Giant Eagle (Gi'an Iggle---in Pittsburghese) sells beer. BEER?

3) Route 28 is under construction. Oh wait. That is the same.

More to come.

Struggle at Yale

Yale is a struggle right now. Sights to be seen :

1) Naked run through Bass. Give some laughs to kids in a basement who haven't seen sunlight for days.

2) Camping out in Saybrook Library, beware of the porn playing on computer monitors. Some Yalies get bored and play pranks.

3) Every computer now has a tab open to Twitter.

4) You see someone in an ugly sweater Tuesday. You see that same someone in the same ugly sweater Friday.

5) Even worse, you smell a strong scent approaching. That would be your best friend.

6) Everyone's a bit chubbier.

7) Food has two flavors: bland and cold. Cold is a flavor.

8) Coffee is water. Coffee shops make so much money they close early. WTF?

9) I haven't seen my bed that much, but the couch in Misha's room has my faceplant in it.

10) You wake up in Arabic homework, in the middle of Arabic class--which you still have during reading week!?

Oy.

Feminist Fallback into the 60s?

So I'm a closeted feminist. But in times of great struggle or stress, (i.e. now, 2 finals a paper and listening exam = rape), I tend to come out. And so do other girls.

Take my friend Evin. She doesn't sleep for 2-3 days. Doesn't shower. Goes to New York to get a passport. Gets hung up on the preoccupation that the only reason she got her passport she needed in 3 days was because she got past the bitch at the counter and upstairs to the men who looked at her dress falling down to reveal her rather large breasts. The woe. She only got what she wanted because she was a pretty woman-- she thought. Not because of her impeccable bargaining skills.

Sometimes feminists hate the fact that beauty can get them what they want. Others embrace it. I tend to embrace it. Or try to. But when I'm feeling bitchy, don't try to compliment me. I will only tear you apart.

Myself, when I'm stressed, I think of an alternative life, where I don't get a job and fall into a traditional gender role that I'm not fit for. Then I freak out. Then I feel bad for all of the women out there that need to depend on men and I get really dogmatic and ROAR!

But NAW MAN! That ain't me. I'm not dogmatic. I, in fact, usually respect the choices of many women to stay at home and raise children, just as I respect men who do the same thing. Its just not for me.

So in times of stress, women get "feministy." They get preoccupied with gender and don't know why. We can't put our finger on that lurking monkey of gender that somehow still affects us. We are women traveling on a gravel (not paved) path of 2nd generation "free" or "more equal" women--especially us at Yale. So what bothers us? If we are at the top at Yale, and we have rights and such, why do we feel there is still something wrong? Feminism isn't as obvious as saying, "Don't say c**t" or "We want equal pay" or "We want abortions" like it was in the 60s.

But we know something is wrong. So what is it? And how do you explain that to a man who doesn't see it?

Baby Lucy Born?

"If the anti-abortion movement took a tenth of the energy they put into noisy theatrics and devoted it to improving the lives of children who have been born into lives of poverty, violence, and neglect, they could make a world shine." --Michael Jay Tucker.

So "Baby Lucy Week 12" has another poster above it with the quote I posted above. I am sitting in LC Hall procrasturbating over Arabic and this caught my attention .

The defense that a lot of Pro-Life advocates make is that, despite the adversities a zygote may face if born, once it develops into a child and then is born, this child can be a "Mozart" or something like that. Yet, how many Mozarts do I see in the ghetto in Natrona Heights? Not quite sure. There are a lot of hungry kids, kids without healthcare, kids with fetal alcohol syndrome....

I'm not going to go into this, but it did get me thinking.... who is looking out for those kids who are born? If someone reads this and can educate me, what do anti-abortion groups do for these kids they are saving?

So "Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale" (RALY) or "Choose Life at Yale," what are you actively doing to prevent zygotes from becoming miserable children or what are you doing to help these saved children become less underprivileged.

BoTax-- Politicians Get Bored, So Make Creative Tax Names

BoTax.

Yep. Pretty soon, there may be a 5% tax on plastic surgery (that is not due to congenital abnormalities, injuries from trauma, or disfiguring disease). The senate is proposing it in the latest Health Care bill.

But seriously. Plastic surgeons and their patients are outraged. From the NYT, "'A lot of people think of this as a tax on rich Republican housewives; rich nonworking Republican housewives,' said Dr. Phile Haeck, 'This is not the case.'" According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 60% of plastic surgery patients earn less than $90,000.

This might just mean outsourcing of plastic surgery (say hello to India and Mexico! Invest in expedia.com! in Kingfisher Airlines! in Air Mexico! haha)

Yet how much is 5% on plastic surgery? Its expensive enough as it is, why not take on another 5%?

While that seems *ahem* "logical," WHY THE HELL DO WE NEED TO TAX EVERYTHING?

Take Mayor Luke Ravenstahl of my own hometown, Pittsburgh. He wants to impose a 1% tax on students (Think University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Carlow, Chatham, Robert Morris, the list goes on). He claims they aren't paying a dime for the services they receive and they should pitch in. According to USA today, only 6% of Carlow students can pay the full $20,000 tuition. What makes Lukie think they can afford more? 100,000 students make up a significant portion of the city. They are the reason Pittsburgh is one of the top ten tech cities in America. Why scare them away?

Perhaps if he came up with a more creative name for the tax, like "Stud-tax" I would be persuaded.

END IT: in 21 Years.

First of all, thanks for bearing with me as I battled swine flu (maybe?) and just general sickness those weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Thanks for waiting for me too as I got back to this blog!

So before break, Deb Margolin (my acting 210 professor) brings in a pamphlet from Washington and Lee University, where she had been giving a talk that weekend. It was from a group "END IT" at WLU, dedicated to ending rape and sexual assault at WLU by the year 2030.

2030.

Wait. Seriously?

Yes. Here is a transcript below:

If you wouldn't want your sister (or brother) to come to W & L, would you send your children?

END IT is a movement that seeks to end sexual assault at W & L no later than 2030.

Let's make W & L a safe place.

(Phone numbers)

Coming soon, endit.wlu.edu.

END IT.

So the website does not work. There is no way to contact this group. I am just left with a bunch of questions and Deb is left with the impression that W & L is "RAPE CITY!"on the weekends. (Apparently getting drunk is an excuse for raping someone?--so I'm told, I have no verifiable fact on this).

All I have is this pamphlet and 2030. No contact. No Website. What does this mean? Does this mean that the rape situation is so bad that its going to take until 2030 to rid of it? Is that an "ambitious goal" or can we be a little more ambitious here??? Or maybe I completely mistake the pamphlet. We all know sexual assaiult happens everywhere. Maybe they are trying to be lenient and solve the problem by slowly phasing in on it.

BUT COME ON. Rape is a federal offense! I don't quite get why you don't say END IT TODAY because its been illegal. You can demand more from your school than 2030, I should hope.

Here is the catch, my oscillation. My catch 22. Whatever. I don't know the situation. All I have a card. 2030. Deb's "Rape City" reaction. I have no facts. I do not know. Maybe this group is somehow right in approaching the problem as they are. But 2030??? I want to judge those raping boys. I want to persuade those victims and activists to demand more. Yet I am clueless. This is the activist's/philanthropist's dilemma: you know something is wrong, you just don't know what.

What would you think?

My Brain Feels like a Magnetic Zero....

When you have a fever, your brain somehow clings to every image, memory, TV show, or the back of your eyelids---definitely not anything you "should" be doing.

So I found my brain floating in its nostalgia today and came across a 10 person band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Basically, its a band that is the brain child of a down and out Alex Ebert. After AA and sleeping on inflatable couches, he came up with the notion of a prophetic hero "Edward Sharpe" who travels around the West, preaching, though constantly distracted by the beautiful Jade, and other women, pleasures, and ideas.

In an age where everyone is looking for a hero or maybe just some comfort from a bygone era where we had faith, we were just distracted. Are we still distracted, or do we even have faith?

Anyways, enough with those pointless blurbs. Buy the CD, check it on Myspace. Here is an article that inspired me. Look 'em up on youtube or myspace or whatever. Listen to their song, "HOME." Basically... something about it reaffirms my sense of comfort, home, and love.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/09/edward-sharpe-and-the-magnetic-zeros-cmon-get-happ.html

I'm going to go nurse this fickle fever.

Flu, and all I can comprehend right now is 3M Tempa(dot) Strips

When you have the flu, your mind does not work. Like mine right now. At the clinic where I went for them to tell me that I have a flu and maybe bronchitis, they took my temperature not with an electronic stick, but rather a strip! Cool stuff, y'know! (This is my mind right now).

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/SH/SkinHealth/products/catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQG2O7_nid=GS7MJ47R7QbeQJ7KQ995P3gl

Check it. 3M Tempa(dot) Thermometer strips. They just stick 'em in your mouth and they tell your temperature. Great innovation, especially when dealing with what is clean and what is not these days is a problem.

And because I have the flu, the clinic gave me ten of them. MWAH HA HA!

God bless the mind with a fever.

Rest in Peace Yale

I wish I could write a valediction or something to comfort myself or others, and maybe I can later. In the mean time, all I can do is employ John Donne.

Valediction Forbidding Mourning:

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Rest in Peace Andre. Rest Peacefully Yale.

British Humor

In lieu of writing a long post, I'm just going to post a Youtube Video to educate you in the finer points of British Humor:

Vicky Pollard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s1C_8qg-e0

What a chav.

Chea. Look that word up. Vicky's picture will probably come up. Along with Burberry coats.

Andy Warhol was obsessed with celebrity culture and the world's attempt for their 15 minutes of fame. Little did he know where this obsession would actually go.

To the sky, along with your 6 year old apparently.

The BBC recently put out an article about the reality TV parents (they had a lot of experience in it) who "sent up" their little boy in a balloon, (but not really) just for the media attention.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8323936.stm

The desperation seems pathetic and awkward, but the self in the eyes of the other is stronger than ever. Facebook. Twitter. Linked in. All of these networking sights are tickling our self obsessions by "Making us famous to 15 people," according to David Weinberger, American Technologist and professional speaker. Mr. Weinberger, I have 1,196 friends on Facebook. I think your statement is false.

Talk about self-obsession.

Regardless, I am not as interested in the self-obsession as I am the media coverage itself, why people convene around things like STAR or PEOPLE, or even Entertainment Tonight or Inside Edition. Self-obsession is only fueled by the fact that people are willing to indulge that person (or couple). Most people say, "Well those people who watch those shows have no lives or nothing special about themselves." I disagree. The people who watch these shows watch them, in my opinion not just to be "In the loop" of "current events" but also because they find something analogous to those absurdities in their own lives. The fear of having a child carried away by a hot air balloon makes the housewife look nervously for her toddler as he is actually eating glue (while mommy figures out who Brad Pitt is fucking). The reality TV shows like Big Brother makes the college roommates reflect on their own drama, after they have just walked in on their boyfriend with another suitemate.

These shows about stars or novelties just remind us of ourselves. We see that people can get famous for the most absurd of reasons, perhaps because we can see ourselves in them.... and maybe the hope remains... we too can be on TV.

PoliSci: WHY? or rather, Why not?

Last night, I conversed with Misha (the Physics/Russian Lit wonder in my life) about why the hell I bother studying Political Science-- I myself sometimes question and doubt the value of my discipline. What am I creating? What can I TRULY know if I am outside of the process/work? How am I an asset to humanity by versing myself in this discipline? I'm certainly not inventing, creating or researching a cure for cancer. ..... Naturally I sound cynical and this is a cynical take. But one has to stop and question these things in order to get maximum efficiency and happiness out of a field.

So, the New York Times prints this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/books/20poli.html?_r=1&em

Basically, a journalist (who probably graduated in Political science) questioning what the hell Political science is and why it is useful to humanity. Rather, the Journalist was following a certain Senator Coburn, who has recently attacked the National Science Foundation for giving $91.3 million to Poli sci field projects and research--money that could have been used in Biology, Physics, or Pharmacology.

Yet, the article quotes:

"Senator Coburn has maintained that commentators on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other news media outlets 'provide a myriad of viewpoints to answer the same questions.'"

If this is where Senators get their Political Science Advice, then I'm a little worried for America.

Political Science does have a duty to inform, but the right people in the right places need to do it. Let's not be frivolous with our money now. Science needs politics just as much as politics (government) needs science. If science wants to see its work deployed on a large scale, its needs politics to help survey that field and that strategy.

Maybe I'll be a Sociology Major.

Holstee: Wholesome Clothing

I love entrepreneurs. I love their passions. In fact, I think I'm Passionate about Passion.

So this weekend, I had dinner with Mike and Fabian (Sandbox). Mike, a Q-pac Grad and brainfather of "Holstee Clothing" and Fabian--the Swiss wonderman of entrepreneurship.

http://www.holstee.com/index/

Holstee is a clothing line, technically, but is more of a lifestyle.

Check out their manifesto:

This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over-analyzing; life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once: seize them. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people. We are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them, so go out and start creating. Life is short. Live your dream, and wear your passion.

Basically, I want to wear their holster pocket shirts (wholesome and "holsters"!) and pocket this idea.

So make a business with your passions. Our economy will love you for it.

And go buy a shirt.

Business Practices That LIVE

Run a healthy, environmentally friendly business. CSR (Corporate Social/Sales Responsibility) can mean serious cash and serious humor.

You may not see how these things connect, but after my Arabic test tomorrow, oh will I tell you.

This just made my night.

Going loopy with work,

Danielle

Dear Enron,

cc: Mr. Skilling

bcc: Douglas Rae

From Today's New York Times, on an Appeal by former Enron Chief:

In his brief asking the Supreme Court to hear his case, Mr. Skilling said that his conduct “even if wrongful in some way, was not the crime of honest-services fraud, because the government conceded that his acts were not intended to advance his own interests instead of Enron’s.”

Intent? INTENT? Can we honestly just look at the facts of who ran away with countless millions before the fall of Enron? Um, hmmm from an HBS case on Enron, the stat is that Skilling took $78 MILLION dollars from 2000 to 2001.

Come now. Everyone had vested interest in Enron's interests because Enron WAS them. Oh Skilling. If you can't be honest that you didn't want that $78 million for your own interests, then you are doing a dis-service to humanity right there. Crime of honest-services? Really? Are you STILL lying?

Check out some pop culture fun: Drop the S off of Skilling, a rap song about corporate america inspired by David Tonsall, a former Employee who was screwed by the scandal.

http://www.thirdcoastrap.com/nrun/play21830102.html

Yours Truly,

Danielle

p.s. Why am I so obsessed???

History Girls: Alan Bennett Hear My Prayer!

Finally, no more Enron love letters.

Anyways, word up to all the Feminists out there. I wanted to put "The History Boys" on at Yale with a cast of all women.

But, as in High School (at The Ellis School For Girls and Young Women), I ran into licensing and legal issues when Samuel L. French required that men be played by men. Women played by women.

Something tells me that Alan Bennett would not have cared too much and might have found my exploration of nostalgia, memory, sexuality, hierarchy and "the cult of masculinity" interesting from a feminine perspective. Granted, I don't like messing with scripts too much in such an Avant Garde way, but there is something to be said about investigating "a Man's World" through a female lens--is breaking through History, making women the makers, seekers, and lenses of history. I mean, even Mrs. Lintott says, "History is just women trailing behind with the bucket." (or something like that). Let's change that. Theater is a good medium to do so.

While I don't want to deal with the fines and legal issues of breaking contract, I do want to bring this issue to the public eye with my play (or rather the program). I want to let people know about these restrictions in the theater world, which is apparently so free and accepting and open to the eyes of idealists out there. Baby, this is a business.

But even if we are a business, business is all about innovation and growth. We are a creative century. Why can't we get past these gender issues already? Break into new territory with theater? Go beyond licensing restrictions and move to something better?

Dear Enron: Why am I writing to you about Cancer wards?

Dear Enron,

Your paper is due in one hour and seven minutes.

Yet I sit here after three hours of procedures for removing yet another cyst in an actual American hospital... and I still have no proofread you.

So about this American hospital. In July, I wrote about the excellent care in the "women's health center" at the American Hospital in Istanbul. Now I write to you about "Breast Cancer Center" at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Funny how I go from "Women's Health" to "Breast Cancer" Centers for treatment. Don't you think they could have been a little more optimistic here in New Haven about that care? (That dragged on quite some time....) Well, I guess I was the only under 50 year old woman in that ward.

Alas, though I'm okay, I'm tired and too high strung to settle into writing about you Enron, because quite frankly, "Breast cancer" is not the same as "women's health."

Why am I writing about this?

Sincerely,

Danielle

Dear Enron: Are we screwed?

Dear Enron--

I visit your tomb today to ask, how many more are like you out there? How many more clever systems are writing off debts that the public cannot see? How many more of you are hiding information and thus creating an unfair market? How many more are keeping our failing economy running on a lie?

If the system is defunct, then we are screwed. Ultimately, you failed because prices caught up to you. Even if you perfect your lies, are we safe from another major market failure? Lies in subprime markets.... lies in Enron.... Where are there more lies that will catch up when there is another change in global markets?

My question is, Enron, should I pack up and go live on a kibbutz? Should I go live on a self sustaining farm in Syria while learning Arabic--as is my dream?

Though dead, Enron, you teach me some scary things. You teach me that this is not unusual and that it is perfectly possible to cover up lies for a long time. If capitalism is suddenly based off of these lies, thus becoming a "failed capitalism," then are we screwed?

I don't like apocalyptic narratives, but this is starting to sound like one. Who needs the class on "Apocalyptic Narratives in American Culture" that American Studies puts out? This is the big daddy of Apocalypse.

Oh how I remember the days when I thought capitalism was so light and fluffy and fair, when we worshipped it at Christmas with the success of marketing triumphs at Brookstone and Toys R' Us. Communism sucks. Facism sucks. Socialism sucks. Mercantilism died. They are all imperfect eventually. What are we going to do?

God I should get some sleep. Oh Enron. I am making no sense because your class is sucking my brains out of meeeeeeeeeeee.

asldkfj ;lawueoir

Yours,

Danielle

Dear Enron

Dear Enron

cc: Activists who hate capitalism, mass media

bcc: Douglas Rae

How do you think Off-Balance sheet partnerships are in any way ethical? Just because they are legal does not make it ethical. Is not one of the first rules to successful capitalism (according to Adam Smith) transparency and freedom of information? Oh, when the days of business were noble and honorable! (At least in my nostalgia for days I've not seen).

But even more so, thank you for making capitalism look more evil than a vengeful demon mask in Japanese No drama. Thanks to you, mass media can make big business (and therefore, most business) look evil to the eyes of the world. Not only does your complexity make you unethical, your complexity makes mass media simplify you to make business seem evil. Oh if only we could reform!

Thanks to instances like this, America has no clue what's going on and they protest things they do not understand. No wonder there. But just the sound of "off-balance" sheet partnerships makes me nauseous too. Yet I am not prone to protest.

Yes, I understand you collapsed in 2001 and this story seems like old news, but why do I feel like you are still haunting me? Perhaps because I have to write a paper on you due Monday.

Sincerely,

Danielle

Sell Yourself for a Cause

Blurb of the day because I am bogged down:

So Queen Rania of Jordan came to Yale last week. Of course I couldn't go because of a Theater Studies class. However, I respect Queen Rania.

In an age of FACEbook, linked in, Twitter, and Myspace, there really is no better time to sell yourself, your lifestyle, and your face for causes---especially if you have the power, the connections, and the money to do so. I respect women and men who have this ability. Queen Rania is one of them.

When you can literally tag your name to Women's Empowerment, Children's Rights, Community Connectivity, and even Jordanian Tourism, there is some definite Marketing power in your voice. Don't get me wrong, I love what she's doing and think more icons should do work like this. Don't think I am dissin HM Queen Rania.

http://www.queenrania.jo/default.aspx

The world loves an icon. Why not make yourself an icon for a cause and then run with it? We love to worship something or someone beautiful and then have a reason to do so. Throw in some human rights to a picture of a beautiful lady and suddenly you aren't guilty for wanting to follow someone.

There should be a course at Yale in "How to make yourself into an Icon-101."

What Happened in My Home? : Police and Protest in Pittsburgh

http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/09270/1001203-482.stm

I am a skeptic. I tend to shy away from protests--I guess I don't find the efficacy in them, often wary of their purpose.

But I know that feeling. People want a cause to fight for. They want to be part of a group, a collective. This applies to both a police force and a protest group. Behavior quickly imitates itself and spreads like wildfire. The collective is an imitation of itself.

So it begins. You get students gathering, for instance, do these girls below even know what they are doing? This isn't a Steelers game girls. This is the G-20.

These sights of SWAT officers 4 blocks from my High School KILLS me. It pains me to see this force come out from seemingly no where and run the streets like an insurgent brigade. Like an insurgent power.

Its easy for a police officer to fall back on coercion, on power, so tediously balanced on the scrim of governance behind it. It feels like at any moment it could fall through, but can it really now? Is that even possible? You protestors, you think the state is afraid of you?

Perhaps you do. You have Twitter revolutions, Facebook revolutions, and a global community of supporters, looking for a way to connect themselves to a cause. And this is powerful. Lucrative (in some cases that you may not realize--think of all those Urban Outfitters T-Shirts). Frightening. Exciting.

While I remain a skeptic about your intentions and your cause, you drive an industry and for that I applaud you. I applaud you for creating a culture that could rival any large business. You are connected. You are young. You are fighters. You are what everyone at one point wishes they were. You want to stick it to the man and you don't even know who the man is. But that fact that you want to stick it, matters somehow.

Look, the G-20 issues will drag on. People in the Man are going to fight Climate Change. They are also going to fight recession. They are going to investigate these things and change them in policy or hard work within (hopefully, if the right people win anyways). I don't know the issues in and out, I don't know if even you know the issues. But props to you for thinking you can change the world. Because someday, you actually may.

Actors in Management: My World View

Sometimes, I feel my worldview is royally unique. It could be brilliantly effective, or a huge, misguided utopian failure.

I am an actress who looks at the world as a stage. Where do our motivations come from? Why do we gather together in search of spectacle? Uniqueness? Unity? Why do we strive for the best performance, in whatever arena we are in (business, sciences, military, sales)? Its about putting on the best act, the best show, to please the client, to improve their lives, and maybe get something out of it yourself.

At the same time, I'm obsessed with business, marketing, networking, organization. I like to create projects, initiatives, get funding for them, create value in them, oversee them, and then pass them on. (Ivy EME, theater, Afghan Sister School, even now with a new entrepreneurial venture I'm developing in the field of headhunting). The interaction. The creation of value. The all holy thing we call capitalism. Hell, creating capitalism! (Why else am I fascinated by Kosovo and the business climate of the developing world?)

Its all the same. Its about putting the right actors in the right business to get good performance ratings, and put on a hell of a good marketing campaign--a spectacle if you will.

Ultimately, even the vocabulary is the same.

Now, how to get this business going would be fabulous.....

Hopefully I'm not sounding too idealist. But I sold you? Right? ;)

Now to say that to myself.

Today in my "Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform" class with Douglas Rae gave a great lecture on the utter importance of Freedom as a means of driving cooperation, success, innovation, and reform. Freedom to enter a market. Freedom to do. Freedom to choose what we so pleased.

As I was leaving, I noticed what looked like a black and white photo of a round planet on a sheet of paper tacked to a message board in LC. Upon further investigation, I found that it was actually titled:

"BABY LUCY, 0 weeks."

"Baby Lucy has just been conceived. She is a zygote, a single cell invisible to the unaided eye, but she is already a whole and distinct organism, possessing all the genetic characteristics necessary to direct her own development from within. We invite you to join us as we watch Baby Lucy grow over the next nine months. Sponsored by Choose Life at Yale."

Feeling that I should be incensed, that some inner feminist rage should overtake me, I came up with a bunch of rash arguments and ranting in my head:

WHAT? MAYBE THOSE MEN SHOULD THINK OF ALL THE DATE RAPES ON CAMPUS. THEY CAN'T CHOOSE TO PREVENT. MAYBE THEY SHOULD TALK TO THOSE BOYS FIRST. HUH? HUH? HUHHHH?

Hold up. This is not how I think. After a moment, I realized, "Danielle, you can't be that crass. You can't be like the anarchist Living Theater people you saw last night. You need to be tactful towards yourself." It's very difficult for a woman not to sound like a raging feminist and get a bad rap when she sees things like this.

You see, it is very difficult for a woman to think about abortion, about choice. Its not as simple as choosing life. Its about preventing life. Its about choosing to DEVELOP life when you want to.

Its about freedom. Freedom of expression of both parties. Yes. However, if there is something that I learned in life, its not what you say, its how you say it.

Look boys. Its about FREEDOM. I want the freedom to choose life. I want the freedom to choose life when its ready, and when I'm ready. I want the freedom to prevent it up until that point. I want the freedom to regulate when my eggs will become human beings (they too are potential life, like a zygote). I also want the freedom to stop the development of a zygote into a human being. You care about life obviously, so lets work together to maybe get some of the date rape off campus we see, to ease/end the inequality between the sexes we see at Yale, even today. Lets create a dialogue with less accusation. Please stop incensing most women on this campus with biting and cruel posters that do nothing to promote life, only anger it.

Forty years, women have been at Yale. About 40 years, women have been able to get an abortion or birth control. 40 years. 40 years. 40 years and you want to take my freedom?

Look. I don't want an abortion... ever. But do you understand the circumstances and consequences of what it means to be in that situation? Perhaps, as a male, you really wouldn't. You've been at Yale for hundreds of years. My sex has only been around for forty. We don't have time to loose with an unwanted RAPE.

I don't want to sound emotional, but LIFE is emotional. Choice is serious. Choice is about freedom. Freedom is life.

Turks Needs A Laxative? Or some Nicorette.

Today I was having tea with a fellow a met at at Model UN try out. After doing that Yale thing (debating politics, ethics, the business sector etc.) we fell into actual Yale discussion, like discussing smoking culture in the world.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a regular smoker. Smoke doesn't bother me, though I tend not to like the idea of smoking. But fact is, come tech week for a show, I smoke. I feel guilty as hell for it too. But also, I'm one of the only female members of SIGAR club at Yale.

However, when a woman with a headscarf is shoving a cigarette in your face after dinner, or when a group of Swiss entrepreneurs smoke in between each course of the meal you are having with them, the guilt disappears. In fact, it eases any tension that may exist (amen for the Muslims who can't drink).

So I was describing how Turkish men in particular tend to smoke a lot, drink 9 cups of tea, and click prayer beads away as they pass time in anxiousness, waiting for someone to come buy their donor or their rug or their souvenir. Let's face it. Long hours. The market is flooded with the same products. You need something to pass the anxiety time presents. Alcohol cannot do it. I told this to Richard who responded: "Turkey sounds like its constipated. They have this secularism kinda stuck in there and they don't know what to do with it so they sit around and smoke."

I laughed. HOWEVER, I love Turkey. Yea, it may need some nicorette or laxative and sort out its complex secular/nonsecular issues, but its always moving forward. (Just look at that domestic market that weathered the economic crisis storm!) haha.

Just sharing the image guys. Images aren't always reality. Thankfully Turks have nice senses of humor. Go ahead and use the line, Orhan Pamuk.

Interraciality for a Mutt Like Me

According to my spellchecker, interraciality is not a word. It also is not something I personally have mused over much in my life as an Eastern European-Gypsy-Cherokee-DAR-??? background.

Yet what I love about Yale is that the people around me bring up these topics to me even though I'm not thinking about them. Meet Dalia, my sweet suite mate. Dalia is a New Yorker. She is a African American Jew with the craziest, sexiest hair (definitely more than my mane). She can kick your ass in Hebrew and is a certified New York Bartender. She has a childlike laugh that makes me smile and she understands kids like no other.

She is taking a course on interraciality and hybridity and sat down on our green couch last night to talk to me about it. I won't go too much into the conversation for privacy's sake, but basically, what we talked about where notions of not being "Black enough" or how being a "halfie" often makes you "BI" racial, and not inter racial. You are not a venn diagram and a whole, but rather two separate things, divided which can make you doubt where/who you are.

For a mutt like me, I don't think of myself in terms of being interracial (in America, what you SEE in color terms is more what defines you as inter racial, being black/indian/asian/chicano, and then something.) It got me to thinking about a whole different struggle in identity that has never crossed my mind. Often times, people at Yale get down on themselves for not being "cool" or "original," by being black and japanese or indian and jewish. Yet people who think this, clearly are not thinking into nuances of the situation. The struggles, the triumphs, and the confusion. These are dilemmas I probably will never have.

So what does it mean to be a mutt? Where is my role in this conversation? I could politely sit back and listen, offer a sort of minimal understanding, and my care/heart for Dalia. I was really interested in her story. Sometimes I wonder though, should I be part of the conversation? If so, where am I valuable? As Dave Chappelle said, "Lets fuck each other till we're beige," I guess I'm already beige (my bubby swears her great grandfather had some african blood). So where do the beige talk?

Living a "Domestic" Life: Life at home for an Ex-pat at heart

In a foreign country, when there is something that potentially rubs you, say, construction, healthcare, pollution, marriage practices, you can shrug it off and say, "Well, how peculiar. This country is not like mine." Of course, I can look at them as potential business opportunities or something--like opening a recycling facility in Istanbul or something. However, for the most part, the ex-pat cannot be expected to solve the problem of the foreigner.

Flash to my town of origin in rural Pennsylvania. Route 28 is STILL under construction. One medication that I could have gotten in Turkey for $10 is $42 here. There are shootings at LA Fitness nearby. I see trash on the roads. Public Education nearby has turned into more like a juvenile detention center.

Basically, the problems that the ex-pat may click their tongue to are in their own country. And by I mean that ex-pat, I mean me. I can't shrug it off because this system directly affects me. Regardless of what country I am in, the fact that my state's education system is not doing so hot, or that my healthcare costs are through the roof (and no comment on the Obama plan...)--all of this has some impact on me, the Passport that I hold, the life I lead, and where I go.

So though my life is far from Domestic yet (even though I'm cooking Creme Brulee and Baklava like Julia--great movie), looking at the stagnation (and death?) of the area I came from can fill any ex-pat's conscience with a little bit of sadness, or even guilt!

I can't even vote to change it here. I'm a Connecticut voter.

The Day After Tomorrow: Pittsburgh Edition

Apparently America has an obsession with apocalypse. (Some people I know would throw global warming into this. Other people I know would throw those same other people as perpetrators of another sort of apocalypse...) Yale this term has a class on Apocalypse in the American Imagination, if my memory serves me correctly after Bluebooking 640 pages...

But I can see why. If I look around at coming home to Pittsburgh, or rather Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, I definitely see why people might be paranoid about imminent destruction and failure. While the downtown area seems to be breathing the fresh, crisp air of the Allegheny Valley and drinking from the blue waters of the Allegheny, the Mon, and the Ohio Rivers, just drive 25 miles up north and you'll see the weed infested gravel plots where buildings stood 8 months ago when I was home for Christmas, or even 5 months ago for those few days in March.

Let me break this down for you:

-At least 3 buildings along Rt. 28 going into the city, that were there when I left, are now gone

-The entire Bouchat car dynasty (i.e. 2 buildings) in Natty Heights are now gone

-The Macy's and just about 40% of the other businesses in the local Heights Plaza are gone.

-Shopping centers that were built at one point last year have been left empty.

YET! I see so much development:

-The WalMarts have taken off 3 miles from my house

-There is a lot of slow Penn Dot construction

-At least 2 New Churches have been built near my home

-The Giant Eagle Grocery Store has expanded

I actually don't know if the development is telling of growth or disaster, but whatever it is, I find the fact that slow construction, Wal-Marts, and Religious establishments (as well as the waist lines of my fellow Natty-Heightsers) have grown in volume as other businesses shrink.

Being home is like being in a different country. Things do seem older and more over grown. The flowers have spread on our bank. The road has aged and gotten sealed. The house has taken on a very "lived in" look that I have been trying to achieve with decoration scheme for the past 10 years of my life (with the exception of last year). The trees have grown and the leaves are big. The grass is not dried out nor dead. New people living outside of the farm have bought old houses. There are old men driving around with their mouths open and the cost of having your nails set has been raised to $30 at a nearby salon.

As things age and as I notice it, perhaps I'm looking for signs of failure in the town that holds my mailing address. Perhaps I'm looking for ways this place is dying and leaving it to gravel and concrete pads, and of course perhaps a greater sort of seclusion on my farm... Perhaps I'm trying to see the Middle Town America that is suffering with cash, cholesterol, and obesity, which is all I hear about but haven't seen in quite some time. Perhaps we crave failure in order to launch ourselves into a new realm or new era in order to escape something.

Americans have always been the greatest escape artists I know (I could argue that Manifest Destiny is merely an excuse for running away). Apocalypse and looming failure is a good reason to escape I suppose. Are we really failing though?

I'm sittin at an Airplane Stations, got a ticket for my destination... mmmm mmmm

Yea, I went there. Go Simon and Garfunkel. Its the truth though. I'm sitting at the Istanbul International Airport after spending a decent amount of time at a D & R Bookstore, a Starbucks, and watching Turkish Customs Officials Drag a shouting man away. Oh Turkey. 

Right now, there is an ad for Reina on the screen (the Night Club I went to on my 19th birthday--thank you Murat). There was a soundtrack for the club at the bookstore. I have about ten YTL in my wallet that I want to spend. I see simit looking croissants in the Starbucks case. Fake blonde dye jobs are everywhere. People are carrying expensive duty free items around, especially the Saudi Tourists ( who probably stayed at my hotel last night, where there were thongs, condoms, and boxers in the Mini Bar to buy--chilling.)

I am sleepy after days without sleep, thanks to my father's snoring in our cave hotel in Cappadocia and our Airport hotel. Last night I ordered a Sutlac out of nostalgia and sleeplessness. It was bad--the sleeplessness and the sutlac.

I could talk about my summer and reflect about my successes, my challenges, my moments.... but the summer isn't done. I still have reports. I still have budgets to complete. I still have meetings in New York that were set up in Istanbul. I choose to remain silent for now. 

I'm surprisingly quiet in the mind. When I do think, I think only of how much I do not want to leave... but not obsessively. It is a quiet longing. I read the newspaper. I read my Turkish Authors I picked up. I listen to Manu Chao as I watch the Turkish Starbucks man take away some plates and mop the leak from the ceiling. 

I have to go and catch my flight to London. 

"All those tours and one night stands, got a suitcase and guitar in hand, and every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one man band." 

Homeward Bound I guess? (Well, not for another 5 days). Simon and Garfunkel took the words right out of my mouth. 

Turkish Tea and Patience

Tonight at dinner in Cappadocia, my father burnt his tongue on a hot cup of Turkish Cay (pronounced Chai) and proceeded to add cold water to the tiny glass, perhaps out of the frustration of having a sore tongue and the desire to conquer that which was trying to make him wait (waiting is a sin in America land you know). It reminded me of the land which I was away from for some 3 months now and what I will face when I go back to it on Saturday.

The little cups of cay that I have encountered in Turkey have taught me a patience that I don't think I had back in the states. Ask my younger sister--part of my daily routine was burning my tongue on my black coffee and then spilling it on a black shirt (planning ahead you know). I could never wait for something to cool off. I wanted the rich satisfaction of the bitter blackness on my tongue, even if it meant pain. I had to wake up. I had to go to school. I had to do it and I had to do it NOW.

Something has changed here. After burning my tongue on a cup of cay that was not meant to wake me up, that was meant for me to enjoy (out of hospitality, during conversation, after dinner), I realized---why the hurry? Why can I not have the temperance to simply wait and sip my cay, making the small cup last infinitely longer than a large black coffee from Tazza D'Oro? Something about drinking from that little cup made me enjoy stirring the sugar cube just a little longer, waiting in between sips, taking my time, letting the tea cool. The purpose of the tea was not to slug it down. The purpose of the tea was for the time it passed. It taught me patience and temperance--skills to be had that I never thought could be learned from a cup of tea.

Now that I am going back to the land of the 2 minute cheese burger and the 99 cent chicken nugget, where large coffees can be downed in a minute and people get antsy if they have to wait more than 1 minute for their computers to load, I imagine I will go back to burning my tongue on my large Mexican Peaberry in the morning. However, when I sit down at the end of the day with my cup of tea and begin the night of studying, I think I'll have that patience I have been praying to learn.

I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.

Playing Tour Guide and Being a Daughter: The Many Sides of Danielle

I harbor within me a not-so-secret love for giving tours. Showing people around and bragging about the history, culture, and food of a place while someone pays me sounds great... kind of legitimizes what I like to do in my spare time anyway. 

So when my parents said they wanted to come to Turkey to visit my sister and me, I jumped on the chance of--for the first time ever--being a tour guide to my parents as well. Yet I was not only going to play guide, but live out the role of daughter again.

Saturday, my sister joined me in Istanbul with her host family from Ankara. We toured the Galata Tower--near where my favorite hotel and part of Istanbul is (end of Tunel, in the little Bohemian Art District, where street artists and graffiti rule). Finally, after Gabbi and I had our moments of smug mutual understanding at many a comment around us, we found our parents joking with a cab driver. Oh Dad. We were a family again. 

It was bizarre. It had been the first time we were together in months. It was glorious. We only had good times and good adventures to talk about. After saying goodbye to Gabbi's other family, we stole her for a night to go to a meyhane on the roof of a building for delicious mezze, raki, and tavuk sis (like tapas, uzo, and chicken kebab). My sister and I two-timed Turkish culture with our parents, explaining our various (and widely different) experiences with them. We had so much to talk about and conversation never ended. The night was epic, as was the view. 

The next day, I played guide--with transport, food, and sights, like the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace etc. We later had dinner with her host family and then said a painful goodbye as she went back to Ankara. 

So we were a family again for that night and day. After two months of playing employee, project manager, student, intern, co-chair, "Mama D," single lady, or yabanci "foreigner" (sorry if I misspelled!), I was a daughter and a guide. 

The next day we went to the prince islands, hired a carriage, and climbed to the top to an orthodox monastery. Later, going to Kadikoy to pick up my phone and still later, a glorious dinner on the Bosphorus at a Turkish/Asian fusion restaurant. I loved the feeling of sharing my favorite spots with my parents. Finally, I could share the love I have for this place with someone. I was guide, but more than that, I was a daughter who could finally share one of her adventures with someone. Solitude is nice, but at the end of the day, it is better when you've told someone what you did in solitude. 

Then we saw a couple at the food bar near us (very soulful little place with the best view of the first bridge!). They were covered up in blankets and eating and drinking. They looked like they had known each other for ages. My father made jokes at them for being gushy and they laughed. Of course dad bought them a drink (after an arduous task of translation...). By the end of our meal, we had another round with them. He was a "digested man" who liked "quality, not quantity" in women. He was a worldly fellow, proud of his achievements and very in love with his fiancee--in the most Turkish way possible. He worked in management of different hotels, clubs, and restaurants around the world and was quite charismatic. Quite a well connected man too. His fiancee, a financial analyst darling and calm--what a man like that needs. In short, they were love. And they only knew each other for a month. We are going to the wedding in May, btw. ;) 

You know me. I don't get mushy. I don't like too much direct sentimentality (even if I post it here... I may not say it with much heart anywhere else). But I liked it. I was sitting on the Bosporus with my parents, having a drink and the meal of my life, with a real couple sitting near. Something gave me hope and faith in the past, present, and future. It gave me hope of the many hats I can put on, and not just put on, but WEAR with a sense of ownership. What hat I will wear in 10 years is scary to think of, but to know that I'm not just acting this--that this is my life.... that is refreshing. 

So a sister guiding her sister from Ankara, in Istanbul, with her parents visiting from the US, after being in 5 different country in 2 months, chilling on the Bosporus, guiding them around the city, and experiencing all of that... coming together. Every memory of my time here and with them flooded in. Its the new face of the new sort of global families that are developing (a special story on this later). 

I like guiding people through my life I guess. Call it vain. Yet, why else do people keep blogs like this? wink wink. 

Morning...?

I've recently discovered what I think is a morning in Istanbul. I think. Maybe. The sun rises, so it must be the sign of a new time, a new day, but as far as a change in pattern or clock goes, I'm still confused. 

Last night, or morning, or yesterday (the 31, night of the 30), I enjoyed tea, mussels, and second hand from cheap cigarettes (not so enjoyable), with five Kurdish men, a El Salvadorian (edgar), a pole (pawel), and a canadian (Jeremy). I was the Mexican sister of Edgar for the night, so don't get too excited. After our American going away party for our co-workers at TOG, Tesev, the Turkish Daily, Koc or otherwise, we ended up making friends with not just our co-workers the average chai man, the usual nut seller, or the guy who cleans your table who only speaks Kurdish, or zazaki (of the Zaza people of course). Chatting about their experiences is unique and when you know just enough Turkish, Arabic, English, or Spanish--well, conversation is limited but entertaining. It was night, but morning. Turkcell was planning its carnival and beginning to hang banners at night's end, but morning to it. I saw men ending their nights and some beginning their days.  

Right now it is nearing 8:00 of the 1st. The sleepy watch guards at the desk of my guest house are just waking up with a heavy dose of Turkish Soap Operas. Perhaps the convenience store has opened. I bet that simit is being made somewhere (its always being made). People are getting up. In my case, my flatmates are leaving. One by one. 

Why am I finding a sense of finality in the morning? (can you feel the subtext of the previous paragraph?). I feel like something is over and its only 8:00AM. Something must be beginning. Normally nights give that sense of closure with the promise of the next day. Anymore, with my insomnia, mornings tell me "Its okay to be awake... now. Too bad Advil PM did not work." 

No. That aside, I've come to appreciate the early morning as limbo. A time of change. Not finality. Forever in limbo, in peace---my mantra. Good Morning Istanbul. Good Night America. Happy 5 o'clock. Somewhere. 

How Facebook Ushered Me into the World of Diplomacy

Why did I get a Facebook initially? To easily contact old friends. To socialize. To share the party photos from the night before. To take all of those ridiculous quizzes like, "Which State Are You?" or "What type of Kisser are you?" To "find myself" in those years of teenage identity crisis. 

Yet in the news, I see people using Facebook to start revolutions.  

This is clearly not the Facebook that I, as an American, know. In other parts of the world, Facebook is a political, diplomatic, business and social hub. The politics can get so intense that my sister's Turkish host father will not let his 17 year old use Facebook yet.  Revolutions in Iran start as a result of Facebook. China has recently banned Facebook. The power is so huge; it is beyond seeing the drunken picture of your friends the day after a party. 

As you well know, recently I visited Kosovo for a JADE Junior Enterprises Conference. I was the only American to attend this conference and I did not meet any other American students in the area (some lovely Canadians...). As a result of this conference, I may venture to say that a decent percentage of Kosovar Youth are now my friends on Facebook—for a country isolated for so long, young people are eager to use their IT and English skills to reach out to the world.

You also know that I recently went to a part of Turkey heavily populated by Kurdish people. As a result of being in Kurdish Turkey and Kosovo within three days of each other, I created a Facebook Photo Album called, “Kurds and Kosovo,” probably just because it had catchy alliteration, but I didn’t think much more into it than that.

Then it began….slowly. The Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had mentioned something in his response to a Facebook message I had sent, inquiring why I put Kurds and Kosovars in the same album. My Turkish friend asked why they were put in the same album. 

Call me ignorant of ethnic pride (I’m about as mixed ethnically as a mutt!), but I soon woke up the next morning to comments from a Kosovar detailing—on EVERY Kosovar photo in the album—the difference between Albanians and Kurds, historically, ethnically, linguistically, and geographically. The tone was a little unsettling and after realizing that I had accidentally friended this person without knowing them (in the long line of friend requests from Kosovar students I had met), I deleted all of the comments and removed the culprit from my friends. 

The man then sent me an e-mail, saying that as a Yale student, I would never have titled an album “Kurds and Kosovo” without more “profound intentions” and that he took it that I was claiming Kurds and Albanians were of the same ethnic group. He went on to give me a history of how the Albanians were there for a longer period of time and were their own distinct ethnic group. In short, he was offended.

In my manner, I felt guilty. I sent him a very thought out response, explaining to him that, as a Yale Student, my intentions were no more profound than alliteration and the fact that I had been in the two places within each other. We aren't super humans! I changed the name of the album at his request and apologized for the misunderstanding, explaining to him how I would be returning to Kosovo in the future for study and work hopefully because of the good impression I had. I mentioned that, as the ethnic mutt of an American I am, I apparently didn’t fully grasp the ethnic conflicts he had experienced. I did write a note about how I thought he should have messaged me to clarify the situation before posting his comments all over my album though!  

He e-mailed back, apologizing whole-heartedly, explaining that after years of Balkans ethnic wars, he had taken me as an enemy of Albania. He explained how grateful he was that I wanted to come back and that he was very sorry for acting on such a strong instinct instead of using his reason. I could see where he was coming from. He explained that he too was a naturalized US citizen (though not the ethnic mutt like me!) and his brother had served in Iraq. He was very grateful to America and had studied at CUNY. He also stated that Yale students "weren't super humans, but close to it! ;)" 

I e-mailed him back and thanked him for his honest response. I was amazed at what just happened and I told him. What a soft diplomacy experience we had together! I couldn’t believe it! I asked him if I could tell our story on the blog and he said he would be honored.

The experience helped me realize the tremendous political potential of Facebook. The next day, I told my friend that I solved a soft diplomacy crisis on Facebook. She said, “Why Facebook?” Exactly.

Wake up world! If you thought your Facebook relationship status started heated conflict, imagine what it does in Iran. But also realize how powerful it is in cultural understanding, exchange, and creating even stronger ties after wording mishaps.

My status later stated "Danielle Tomson: has been enlightened on the diplomatic powers of Facebook. Welcome to the rest of the world...." I don’t think I got so many “Likes” from internationals on that status than any other I had before…

 

 

NEW BORN : Kosovo Recap in 10 Points

After the JADE Summer Meeting of Junior Enterprises in Prishtina, Kosovo,

I feel NEWBORN.

Some Hallmark Card once told me inspiration and hope have the power to give birth to a new sense of self, understanding, and purpose. Goddamit, it was right! 

Right in the  city center of Prishtina (the capital of Kosovo), there lies the letters to make up "NEWBORN" from Kosovo Independence Day on February 18, 2008. This makes it the youngest country in the world, which currently, 62 countries recognize--including the United States and Saudi Arabia. How to truly explain/organize my time there is difficult without being excessively verbose, so I have: 

 10 POINTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MY TIME IN KOSOVO 

1) HOLD UP? Where is Kosovo? What is a Kosovar? 

Kosovo is located in the Balkans south of Serbia and north of Albania and Macedonia. Some of the borders are still disputed, as it is such a young country. Long story made VERY short, Kosovo for the longest time was part of Serbia. However, Kosovo is made up of ethnic Albanians mostly (though they have a multicultural/multiethnic population of Serbians and Turks) and Serbians are Serbians. Kosovars had been fighting for independence through the 90's until the conflict came to a violent head in 1999, when NATO (with the help of Bill Clinton) intervened. Later in 2008, Kosovo declared its independence. Though it is ethnically tied to Albania, there are many Serbian, Turkish, and Bulgarian Kosovars. Though they claim to practice Islam, most are just culturally Muslim. 

The country is overwhelmingly multicultural, religiously plural, and multiethnic. There is a strong sense of being a KOSOVAR (kind of like what America used to be, right?) 

2) WHY WAS I THERE???//WHAT IS JADE???

In May, I was in Brussels working with AEGEE (the European Students Forum) conducting the Ivy Europe Middle East Conference. Florent Barel, from JADE Junior Enterprises, was invited to speak at our conference. JADE is a network of 20,000+ Junior Entrepreneurs from around Europe, all of which run Junior Enterprises, which are like non-profit organizations/businesses that work in management, consulting, or product sales. The aim is to give practical experience to theoretical knowledge. JADE also has a sister network in Brazil, called Brazil Junior. 

About a month later, I get an e-mail from Lindita Komani, JADE's international enlargement manager, saying (this is me paraphrasing in "Amuurican English") "Yo, we want JADE's network in America. We know you do this sorta thing. Come to Kosovo." To which my response was (after rethinking my trips to Greece or Amsterdam), HELL YES! (When else would I have the incentive to go to Kosovo...)

Throughout the year, JADE has various meetings to bring members together. This Summer Meeting was held in Prishtina with a focus on Sustainable Development in Business in the 21st century, particularly using Kosovo as a case study. 

3) Kosovo is young. And Youthful. 

Kosovo is truly a "NEWBORN" country, with under-30-year-olds making up about 70% of the population. Lets put this into perspective: 

Upon meeting a professor from the American University of Kosovo, he invited me to meet his Professional Studies Class--where he teaches members of the cabinet about International Law, Politics, Political Economy etc.  Classes to run a country basically. I went to a local cafe and basically had a beer with Kosovo's various ministers. Most were under 30. 

The Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was 27. Yea. Most Americans this age can only do this sort of thing on "Empire Earth" or "Sim City." Youth are running this country. 

Prishtina screams youth. There are almost as many discos as supermarkets. New store and cafe facades a la New York City pop up over old buildings with concrete peeling on top and barbed wire fences. Most of the youth are coming back from the USA or Austria to claim the opportunity of running their new country. 

People are selling their farms to send their children to university. It is amazing. 

When the panelists at the conference spoke to us, they spoke to us as if we were CEO's of major companies here to invest. The thing is, there is no franchising or branding. Kosovo depends on small start ups to invest. So essentially, we were their future. There is a spirit of entrepreneurship, of starting new, of starting something of one's own after years of, after one panelist put it, "Communism, Socialism, then I don't know what." 

4) Kosovo is rebuilding with optimism

Okay, so the numbers look grim economically. 95% import with 5% export. Loans at 14-16%. Yet EVERYWHERE you look, there is building. Bricks and car sales are way up. They are trying to build a new power plant. Everyone is opening a cafe, a telecom company, an IT firm, a consultancy office, a bank, a disco. Barbed wire and the UNHCR building sit next to the Route 66 Burger Cafe. We visited many small start ups, including MDA (Consulting and Management), Cacttus (IT), and even a fashion designer, Krenare Rugova, who studied/worked at Parsons in NYC and in Paris (please see my fashion blog)

The conflict is visible, but deteriorating, quite literally. For instance, the 10-13 floors of "Grand Hotel Prishtina" where I stayed was accessible via stairs. These floors were used during the war as "Interrogation" centers (use your imagination), according to the American Journalists we met there. The floors were stripped of their carpet and there was evidence of old electrical fires. Look off the roof and you could see a city of satellites. Old concrete and barbed wire walls are falling. In their place, new facades and signs of new businesses were coming up. 

As Mimoza Kusari, from the American Chamber of Commerce most powerfully said at a Panel on July 18th,  “We exist. The war is over, it is long over. We have to be in charge. We have to be trusted.”

5) Religious Plurality (ahem Secularism) in Kosovo

Most people are surprised to know that Kosovo is made up of primarily Muslims. This is almost a misnomer. No where else can you hear an electronic, recorded call to prayer. This would be so Harram anywhere else. Most Kosovars are very secular. Religion is a cultural thing that poses no problem to them. 

I did go to a 15th century Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo, where I crashed three weddings in 30 minutes. It was guarded by Swedish military forces and I saw Irish NATO walking around. Kids were singing 50 cent to me while asking for money. I saw the most beautiful frescos of my life in that little monastery. I kissed them. The smell of incense came over me and a reverence filled me, like an imploding explosion. The Serbian Nun (who spoke perfect English) had help me out after a moment... 

Christians and Muslims live in peace in Kosovo. They drink together, that is for damn sure. 

6) Kosovo is Safe

Kosovo recently joined the IMF and the World Bank, as well as OPIC. This is a testament to the development of the country. Never did I feel directly in danger (though I always kept my guard up!) While there remains to be some ethnic tensions between Albanians and Serbians, some small crimes arising etc, this is nothing compared to say NYC or something. The War is over though. Move on friends. 

7) Kosovo is Wired

I cannot get Youtube in Turkey, but I can in Kosovo. Free wi-fi zones are EVERYWHERE. We visited many small IT companies. Everyone has a cell phone, yet Vodafone does not exist there yet, only the domestic carrier, Ipko. Everyone is very knowledgeable of global news, culture, events. Satellites are everywhere. It was their only way out. 

Driving down the broken highway on a flat tire listening to Kanye along the border is something I will never forget. 

8) Kosovo LOVES America

Rt. 66 Burgers and Fries. American Flags everywhere. More than America. Bill Clinton Street intersecting with Mother Theresa Street. Celebrations for the 4th of July. People blessing me everywhere I went. People naming their children Bill Clinton or Hillary. This is about the only place on the European Continent where you see so much pride for America. Everyone speaks English too! (Along with Albanian)

9) Kosovo can be the Future

People seem to have forgotten about Kosovo in the scholarly community. Everyone is packing up and going to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iraq. Perhaps rightfully so. 

Yet Kosovo offers itself as a multicultural, multiethnic, religiously plural country, who needed help to be liberated with US intervention. Sounds like Iraq, right? Kosovo could be a model of post-conflict development if we only give it the chance to be so. We need to study it, give it a chance, invest in it, REMEMBER it. 

In the main square, there is a building that says, in English, "WE ARE THE FUTURE." In many ways, they are. They have the capability to fashion a whole new sort of state and be the model to the world for this. 

In short, this multiethnic, multicultural, religiously pluralistic (Muslim and Christian!), youthful, and young country is everything the EU wants to be and everything America stands for--at least value/ideal wise. Granted, Kosovo has a long way to go, but the fact that it symbolizes these values is gigantic. 

10) Kosovo and Me

I suddenly find myself as a "soft" diplomat for America. I find myself thinking of different business plans every moment. I'm reading everything I can on the Balkans. I am basically giving myself a crash course in international investing and real estate. I'm so eager I cannot sleep. 

I had a long conversation with Lindita (which I won't share entirely here). Lets just say that the memory of what Kosovo has gone through is definitely not forgotten, but there remains a spirit, not just in business, but in art, politics, and music too that exists to keep everyone going. 

I don't know how such a small country can have such a huge power on me. Everyday, I get bombarded with emails and Facebook messages from curious Kosovars, who want to know why I was there, if I'm coming back, if I liked the country. They are the most curious, proud, and kind people I have met in quite some time. 

I'm exhausted but energized with life. With pride. With Hope. With innovation. With creativity.  "Yes, We Can" is a motto for the world, but "NEWBORN" is an idea for the future of it.