Pregnancy diary, week 11: Yesterday, while hanging over the toilet in between vomits, I found myself whistling the tune that had been going around my head. I think you've officially spent too much time vomiting when you can absentmindedly whistle at the same time.

Also, despite the fact that I'm still down several kilos from my pre-pregnancy weight, I'm already getting stretch marks on my belly. How does that work?!

I keep composing LJ posts in my head, but then I never bother to actually write them down. :(

I'm actually excited about Further Confusion, for a change. Getting in some preemptive mommy-guilt fretting, of course, but otherwise really looking forward to it.

Remember to leave a little space for absurdity in your life...

One trick to surviving in an elementary classroom is the copious use of feedback. Positive is better than negative, by far. (Even if the only thing you can say is "I appreciate the way you stayed in your own space during circle time". And yes, I've been there.) There are ways to make your feedback more effective:

1) Make it prompt
2) Make it specific
3) Tie it to repeatable behavior

I hadn't realized how ingrained in my speech patterns these rules were until yesterday morning, when Timothy watched nicodemusrat fixing breakfast for a bit, then happily chirped "Good job pour milk on your cereal, Daddy!"

Hiking Log #2: Mailbox Peak (again, yes)

This time, I made it all the way up. Photos will be posted tomorrow, as I'm still offline at home and am currently elsewhere using a computer. Now, for the uninitiated, Mailbox Peak is the nastiest dayhike around: 5 miles round trip, with 4000' feet elevation gain in 2.5 miles. On top of that, the top quarter of the trail was covered in snow. My previous best time was in August, when I hiked to the top in 3.5 hours. (And no, that's not a bad time for this trail. Trust me.)

Today? Even with the snow, 2.5 hours to the top! Booyah!

I passed a number of people going up (and *they* had smart things, like crampons and hiking poles, which I didn't bother with). Every single person I passed gave up shortly after the snowline. There was one guy ahead of me that I was trying to catch. I felt smug when I shortened the distance, but deflated when I saw him unpack a five gallon container of water from his freaking backpack at the top. I pulled up as he started pouring half of it out. He saw me gaping and said, "I didn't get as thirsty as I thought I would." Heh! (It was for training, not thirst.)

I made killer time down, too. I hung out at the top long enough to completely freeze, then descended below the snowline. This took thirty minutes. I consulted the time and decided that I didn't really feel like hiking back after dark, and at my normal pace on this evil descent, I wouldn't make it back until about 5:00. Mmm. Nah. So I trail ran back.

No shit. I think I'm tougher than anyone except thewronghands today. (She's doing Wilderness First Responder training right now, and is officially tougher than anyone else. I kept wondering if I would need a Wilderness First Responder while running down the mountain and was happy that I had the phone number of one, even if she is only half-trained.)

I not only made it down from the snowline in an astonishing 50 minutes, but I passed everyone heading down who I'd passed going up. Entire time for the hike? 4 hours and 5 minutes.

My legs kept trying to buckle on me as I walked to the car. Otherwise, I feel pretty damn good. Next time, though: bring the crampons.

So, I am going to try to do a photo a day this year. Many of them will be portraits, to knock off two creative birds with one stone. I have no idea if I will succeed in this or not, since many times I'm sure I'll be down to desperately photographing the cat for the umpteenth time instead of something interesting. However, the idea is to use most of the shots for a free-associative post as well.

I'll cut this one since it may squick some people.

( January 2 -- Needled )

Starting off with Mailbox Peak is starting the year off right. (I didn't get all the way to the top, thanks to a late start. I will reattempt soon!) Still, I came down after dark, legs sore and mind clear.

( First of the first. )

Happy New Year, my friends. May it bring you joy and beauty wherever you walk.

Title: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Author: Dai Sijie
Pages: 184
Status: Borrowed from Brandon while in China!
Read this book: to reignite your love of reading.

I read this little, beautiful book in (nearly) one sitting.  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is the story of two friends, during China's Cultural Revolution, sent to a remote mountain town to be "re-educated" for the "crimes" of their parents.  In addition to having an enchanting plot and fascinating historical exegesis (I wasn't aware of the extent to which the Cultural Revolution decracinated families in China's middle and educated classes), the overarching theme, that literature has the power to transfix, transform, and transcend, is timeless. 

On a particularly bad day in Liberia a very sage friend of mine said (and I'm paraphrasing): "Why don't you go home and read a book or two?  By the time you've finished you'll be in a completely different place than you are now.  You will have learned something and your perspective on life will have shifted, if only a little bit."  My friend was completely right.  Each book you read changes your conscious indelibly, though often imperceptively, while you leave wherever and whenever you are to enter the world of the book.  That's what "Seamstress" is all about.  That's what Reading Lolita in Tehran and the emerging cannon of (non)fiction books about (re)discovering literary classics are all about.  That's what this project is all about.  Learning, changing, and growing or knowledge, change, and growth through reading.  The consequences, however, can be unpredictable as "Seamstress" illustrates....         

Favorite Quotes:

"All this talk of literature was getting me down.  We had been so unlucky.  By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read.  For years the 'Western Literature' sections of the bookshops were devoted to the complete works of the Albanian Communist leader Enver Hoxha..." (51).

"But Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a salutary revelation.  Without him I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual.  Up until this stolen encounter with Romain Rolland's hero, my poor uneducated and re-educated brains had been incapable of grasping the notion of one man standing up against the whole world.... To me it was the ultimate book: once you had read it, neither your own life nor thew orld you lived in would ever look the same" (111).

"It would evidenty take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well dressed: it was a desire as old as the world, as old as the desire for children" (122).

nicodemusrat introduced me to a new word the other day: mudita. It's Sanskrit, from Buddhism, and is the opposite of schadenfreude. It's joy in others' joy, the feeling you get when someone else's delight makes you delight as well. It makes me think of the smile that comes when you watch a child accomplish something for the first time, or the soft warmth in your chest when you see your beloved with their face turned up to the sun, just enjoying the day.

To me, it underlines the truth that joy, love, contentment- these aren't finite resources. Someone else's happiness does not lessen mine. My joy doesn't take yours away. Rather, by reflecting joy from others, I create more joy both for myself and to pass on. And it becomes a habit of mind, a way to view the world. I like that thought- that even if my own circumstances may be less than stellar at a particular moment, there is always joy to be found. I don't need to steal it, I don't need to be jealous or grasping, there is no competition to win. There is always joy. That someone else may have lit the candle does not mean I can't see by its light, or borrow its heat to light my own.

It is a lovely word for a lovely concept that needs more air time in this world.

Title: Say You're One of Them
Author: Awem Akpan
Pages: 360
Status: Own
Read this book: because, let's face it, sometimes Oprah's book club picks are just downright good.

Say You're One of Them is a collection of short stories by Nigerian theologian turned writer Uwem Akpan, who I am anticipating reading more of as he continues to publish.  Each of the five stories (or two novellas and three stories, really) in the collection is told from the perspective of a child, which makes the already evocative stories of trafficking, genocide, and violence all the more heart breaking and downright gut wrenching.  The stories, set alternately in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Nigeria/Liberia/Sierra Leone, and Rwanda are horrifying in their portrayal of historical events and everyday realities on the continent.  The child narrators/characters are used as aides memoir and poignantly reverberate the danger of taking even a single human life for granted.  This book is African fiction at its best - sad yet hopeful, beautiful but haunting, and mesmerizing albeit painful.  The book's critical claim is well deserved and, for those of you who refuse to read what everyone else is reading, read this anyway. 

My only issue with the collection is that I felt some of the stories were somewhat obvious.  However, the more I am home (by home, I mean in the United States) and the more I talk to people, I realize the events may not be as obvious to a more general public (the enormous group of people, say, who didn't study Africa in graduate school).  Taken with this perspective, these stories need to be painfully obvious in order to insert the Rwandan genocide, the Liberian civil war, and the historical religious violence in Nigeria into our historical memory, from which they, like most of African history, are utterly lacking.

Title: Letter to My Daughter
Author: Maya Angelou
Pages: 166
Status: Received for Christmas from my dad!
Read this book: for a little inspiration!

I received Maya Angelou's Letter to My Daughter for Christmas from my dad, who was lucky enough to hear her in person at an AARP convention a few years ago.  At that venue, my dad said Angelou spoke extemporaneously about her life, relaying stories, some painful, others embarrassing, of individual conversations, moments, and relationships that indelibly changed her, thereby teaching her some of the fundamental life lessons by which she endeavors to live.  Letter to My Daughter is an amalgamation of those hard learned life lessons told in much the same way: without narrative structure but with a great deal of poetry.  The "chapter" titles alone, ("home," "philanthropy," "Morocco," and "Celia Cruz" among others) speak to the varying nature of these recollections and the variety of lessons within them. 

Letter to My Daughter is a fabulous collection from one of America's most well-loved and highly regarded poets of all time.  It was nice to hear Maya Angelou's voice in my head while I read her letter.  (I apologize for my cheesiness, but) "Letter" was inspiring.  (How could it not be?  Angelou brings audiences to tears with her elegiac commencement addresses every year!) It inspired me to look back, fondly, on this past year which was not, as Angelou describes her own life, "all peaches and cream," and to look forward, with baited breath, at the coming year, hoping as Angelou believes, "that life loves the liver of it."  Thank you, Dad, for this wonderful addition to my library! 

There were so many great passages in this book, it was hard to narrow down my favorites:

"I believe that one can never leave home.  I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one's skin at the extreme corners of ones eyes and possibly in the gristle of the ear lobe" (6).

"What do I think of my country?  What is there, which elevates my shoulders and stirs my blood when I hear the words, the United States of America: Do I praise my country enough?  Do I laud my fellow citizens enough?  What is there about my country that makes me hang my head and avert my eyes when I hear the words the United States of America, and what am I doing about it?  Am I relating my disappointment to my leaders and to my fellow citizens, or am I like someone not involved sitting high and looking low?  As Americans, we should not be afraid to respond" (84).

"In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions or lessons.  The epitome of sophistication is utter simplicity" (91).

"When I find myself filling with rage over the loss of a beloved, I try as soon as possible to remember that my concerns and questions should be focused on what I learned or what I have yet to learn from my departed love.  What legacy was left which can help me in the art of living a good life?" (108).

"To respect our ancestors and out of concern for our descendants, we must show ourselves as courteous and courageous well-meaning Americans.  Now" (126).

Did a few different hikes over the last couple of days. My hiking log is hopelessly out of date, so I won't bother with a formal report. The most enjoyable was Dungeness Spit. I didn't make it clear out to Serenity (the lighthouse), which is an 11 mile round trip. The gates get locked at sunset and I wasn't betting on my ability to get back in time.

I vastly prefer high elevation summer/fall hiking to trying to find good low elevation winter hikes. This is one of my favorites, though. So is Ozette, but that's such a long haul to the coast. I may take an overnight and do it soon, though.

The latest TMBG video to fascinate Tim (and me):



Yes, it's the elements! Tim has taken a definite liking to this one. Fortunately, I also like the song (though it is a bit repetitive).

Now I know that they say preschoolers don't need a basic knowledge of chemistry when they enter school but you just know the kindergartners with a working understanding of chemistry are the ones that get ahead. ;)

For Winter Holiday, I am getting myself a new phone, as the PalmOS is headed to its grave and I can't get the dang Treo to work with my carrier quite right anymore. I've determined that (A) I like TMobile enough to stay with them, (B) I will not tolerate not having a physical keyboard, and (C) I want an Android phone. Careful consideration has narrowed this down to two candidates, both of the same price. Poking on them for nigh unto an hour in the store has not helped me decide between them. THerefore, I choose the wisdom of crowds. What should I has in my pocketses?

I'm trying to choose between the Google/HTC G1 and Motorola Cliq. If I used a lot of social-networking sites, I think I'd like the Cliq, but I don't, so I don't. The trade-off is simpler: the G1 has more physical buttons and a trackball you can use to scroll screens/items when the keyboard's closed. The Cliq has more app storage space and RAM, which makes it work a lot more snappily. I really like having buttons and other physical objects, because touchscreen scrolling and touch keyboards hate my fatty fingers. I can't decide if the better speed is worth the interface annoyance, although I feel like I'd get used to the latter at some point. There's also some weird questions about OS upgrades that I choose to ignore because it's all speculative anyway.

Opinions? I think I might just pay the stupid $10 restock fee, get a Cliq, and then walk around with it for a week to see what happens.

And a bonus Jonathan Coulton link: Someone did a fan video for one of my favorite songs, I Feel Fantastic. It somehow has just the right feel for JC's music. EDIT: Link Fixed

In the Christmas vein, here's the Problemology one for the holiday season:


If you want more, check out the classic Christmas 2007 episode too.

Back from Rio de Janeiro today, where I took some of those lo-fi iPhone panoramas I've been known to make: ( Read more... )

An interesting thing happened one day while we were swimming at the beach at Ipanema. The weather was superb; brilliant sun and warm breezes on the longest weekend days of the year. The waves were also terrific---I dunno, maybe four or five feet tall? Perhaps a few were larger. Sure, they were powerful, but nothing a decent swimmer couldn't handle. Well, I had a nice time swimming in the waves and trying to body surf, but before too long a fireman (?? his red swimming outfit said "bombeiros" on it) turned up and indicated that I was to return to the shallows, and not to venture further than knee deep from the shore. I swam back and stood there for a little while as the fireman waded off, but since plenty of other people were still further out, I soon ventured back into the waves. It wasn't long before the fireman waded back from the other direction, though, and this time he blew his whistle when he saw me busy not drowning in water deeper than my head. Back to the shallows for me.

I have a hard time understanding what that was all about. None of the other lifeguards on the beach (NB: not firemen) seemed concerned with my being out there. I have it on good authority that I did not appear to be struggling, and in fact I wasn't. I am a capable swimmer---not competitive, sure, but I wasn't in any trouble. I don't look frail, and of the five or so other people nearby that the fireman allowed to remain in the deeper waters, there were a couple whose athletic talents could perhaps include, say, horseshoes, but not the 100m freestyle.

The most obvious thing that would set me apart, of course, is that I was probably the whitest guy on the beach. Regular (friended) readers of this blog, as well as regular friends, will understand why I almost never go shirtless, and if I do (actually this was pretty much the only time), I wear layers and layers of sunscreen. My gleaming pallor was surely screaming "not from around here" or maybe even "never went outdoors before", and perhaps the fireman assumed that I couldn't swim.

Well, that was a bummer. I heeded his silly instructions. I didn't want to distract him from his important job watching for fires in the Atlantic Ocean. It was late in the day anyway. We left.