Senioritis

Senioritis is in full swing for me. Right now, I should be writing my capstone and four other research papers, as well as preparing three presentations and a project due in the next two weeks.  Fun fact: I have started on none of the above.  It isn't entirely that I am lazy, or apprehensive, about graduating or what I am going to do after graduation, part of it is a lack of available knowledge on the topics I am researching (seriously, I don't think anyone has ever researched religious practices of the Ixil, at least as far as women's roles in religious practice are concerned; and serious research on gender presentation and performance in video games is probably in the same boat).  

But the most frustrating thing of this final semester is not my research papers, but the busy work I am constantly assigned by my gen-eds that simply gets in the way of any serious efforts to complete my assignments.  Plus, I have the attention span of a gold fish, which isn't helping me at all and I am above taking performance enhancing drugs - regularly.  My fears are probably getting the best of me, but at the same time the ridiculous requirements for graduation aren't helping me either.  When the hell am I ever going to need anything I am learning in my math class - it isn't statistics or anything useful, like balancing a checkbook, but it's all about bead patterns and weird graphs and shit.  Nothing of relevance to me and really a time consumer.

This semester has filled me with doubt: about where I am going, what I am doing, and whether or not I will finish this year even.  But I guess it is alright to doubt, because it can be inspiration to do.  Dale Carnegie once wrote, "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."  And if what is beneath is any indication, I got busy - but in the wrong place.

Doubt

I doubt I will graduate.

The focus I tend to possess when I write is

absent,

The cascade of organized thoughts and synthesized

concepts has run dry, with

hardly a trickle left.

I doubt it will come back.

My desk is piled to the clouds with monographs,

feminist theory, games to observe

and report, and a series of articles waiting to

be examined, dissected, and robbed of their

precious cargoes, coerced into confession of vital

information I seek.

I doubt I will get it easily.

My mind is away, back where my heart

remains - wandering the cobbled, narrow corridors

meandering down to the Guadalquivir,

where the rush slows and silences

beneath the ramparts, in my mind.

I doubt I will ever go back.

I desire the serpentine streets of the West

again, and for duty and necessity to fade

and surrender to my desires.  But that will never

be.

I doubt it will ever be.

Fin

He looked as if he would shatter,

Into a million tiny pieces of crystal at the 

slightest touch.  He was defeated.

He was worn out, exhausted and finished with 

the continued monotony.

He couldn't remember anything in the past

month; Where he had gone, who he had met.  

On the edges of his eyes, the flood was

beginning.  It would soon drown an unresolved

pain, a decade of silent suffering, perhaps the 

longest running performance of any kind

of any time.  

In his head, the beat picks up to the light

whistle of medieval rhythms and sounds.

The curtain has closed and the actor is 

laid naked before the world - his script, his 

action, revealed to be a farce to express jovial

thought and notion but hiding despair 

that he let destroy him for half a score.

A Few From the Vaults

I used to write a lot more than I currently do.  I don't think I've lost interest, but I just can't find the words.  So, I figure if share a few from the stacks that maybe it will encourage to take up my pen again for cathartic, or aesthetic reasons.  Enjoy.

Constellations

Down here on the warm cement,

Beneath Luna’s shining light, I lay

In wait for a fresh idea, a thought

To seize in my mind, to pass

Through my fingers, to the end

Of this ballpoint.

I count three celestial spheres

In the deep

Azure twilight, and begin to

Think of the constellations. I look

For Orion, but in this light he

May indeed still be traversing the

Clear, sparkling waters of Attica

As Diana pulls back her bow

To take aim at her unexpecting lover.

So, while the warrior eludes

My gaze, the bear lingers

forth from his heavenly hollow

In search of his cub or scavenges

For sustenance 

At the end of the world,

Where, the great warrior and the great

Huntress bask in the lunar luminescence,

The great bear could indeed be in the

Thicket off in the distance.

Woodland Cemetery

I remember being in the graveyard by school.

Wasn’t too far out of my way home,

And yet, I felt like getting lost

On the twisting path in Woodland.

Wasn’t too far out of my way home,

And quite nicer than the run-down

Neighborhood not on the twisting path in Woodland

Lined by marble and granite memorials.

Quite nicer than the run-down

Quiet rows that calm me,

Lined by marble and granite memorials

Laid out like dying apple trees.

The somber rows.

Led by autumn, breezes sting: knives

Laid out like dying.  Apple trees in

The snow-covered groves of the first snow.

The autumn breeze stinging,

I remember being in the graveyard by school,

Daylight running out, my curfew getting close,

And yet I felt like getting lost.

The Grave of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Woodland Cemetery

A Commentary on Northern Hospitality vs. Southern Hospitality

This is going to be difficult to explain.  We all - at least stateside - have heard of Southern hospitality and how wonderful it is supposed to be.  This concept is invoked to explain the cultural differences between Southerners and Northerners in the United States as part of the tradition of comparing and pointing out the differences between us as Americans.  Generally, it is meant to define Northerners as being rude, ungracious people compared to Southerners.

But are Northerners really rude? Or is it just our culture that makes us more selective as to who we are polite towards? I might be biased, but I think it is just that we are selective in our politeness, and see kindness as an extension of respect - which is earned.  Let me explain.

When I was in high school, my mother would meet many of my friends with skepticism upon their initial introduction.  She was never flat-out rude to any of my friends, but she was far from the cool mom in Mean Girls in her welcome.  If they asked for anything - such as the bathroom - on their first visit to my house, I was instructed to show them; she didn't, for any of my friends.  And she generally presented herself as a very firm individual.  My friends found it their duty as my guest to show that they appreciated and warranted her hospitality.  Cue the second visit of any of my friends.

She welcomed them all with open arms, literally.  For every friend that came over, she had a big hug waiting for them.  She'd bring them in, give them food, invite them to stay for dinner (after already feeding them), offer them everything but the kitchen sink pretty much.  My friends could get away with things around my mom that I could never get away with, such as swearing.  In her words, "After the second visit, you're furniture." Which to her, means your welcome any time and you are family.  Not like family - actual family.

That is hospitality in the North.  Up north, I guess, politeness and hospitality are things that are important as part of our identity.  Being a good host is important, but what it means to be a good host is much different.  If someone is a guest in your family's home, they are your guest, but not your family's guest - at least the first visit.  In the South, if you bring a guest home you are everyone's guest and everyone is invested in being as welcoming as possible.

During a Thanksgiving break, I stayed with a friend.  Everyone in his family took the initiative to be welcoming of me in their home.  They had never met me before, but they treated as family.  This was new to me.  I could see what Southern hospitality was when I stayed with them, but it wasn't much different from how my family treated guests.  It was that they gave the same treatment on the first visit that I saw given at the second visit and after.

To me, the welcomes of Southerners versus Northerners weren't profoundly different.  However, it did seem that Northerners were more direct in their appraising of new people.  If I was being appraised by my friend's family, I didn't know it; however, I am certain that I am welcome in their home anytime, and I've come to regard my friend's family as an extension of my own.  This still isn't different from my own experiences in the North.

However, it seems that in the North, we aren't shy about appraising others.  It seems that the overt appraisal of others in the North is a means to ground ourselves and others, to keep ourselves from becoming proud and high and mighty.  In the South, it seems that it is a covert action to grade others.  It seems that Southerners feel that any kind of criticism of another, especially when they are a guest in their home.  It seems that in the North, being a gracious guest is priority versus being a gracious host.

Perhaps it is just appearances.  It appears that in the North, being a gracious guest is seen as more valuable than being a gracious host.  Perhaps, the cultural differences between Northerners and Southerners is not that we (Northerners) are rude, but that we are better at being guests than we are for being hosts - at least initially.

Introduction

I feel like my regular readers from my international adventures know who I am, and what I am about, for the most part.  But if you don't, here you go: I'm David, and I am the most interesting person you will never meet.  Currently, I'm a student at a small, private, liberal-arts college in Virginia.  I'm majoring in History and Women's Studies, and I hope to attend graduate school to get a master's degree in Social Work and later possibly obtain a PhD in counseling.  I want to eventually work with victims of human trafficking or domestic violence; don't really care where, I just want to be able to help people in need.

I cannot really describe any kind of subculture to which I belong.  I'm not big into sports, or cars, or anything like that.  I'm not really a gamer - something that all of my friends can attest to the fact.  I do, however, enjoy politics and current events, I guess.  I know, so exciting.  But the thing I guess that makes me so interesting is just how open I am to new experiences.  Have you ever been invited to do psychedelic mushrooms with a hostel owner and a prostitute in Morocco? I have, and I did.  You ever get invited to go to a traditional Shisha den with the lesbian queen of Marrakesh (not her official title but homegurl definitely ran that shit)? I've done that, too.

Did I forget to mention that I currently hold a 3.41 GPA, have been invited to join Phi Beta Kappa, and am a member of a fraternity? I know what you're probably thinking: a fratboy liberal who doesn't afraid of anything, this can't be real.  Well, you're kind of right; I'm not a fratboy, I'm a fraternity man.  Fratboys are the ones who send stupid ass e-mails telling their new members to focus on getting pussy.  Fraternity men are the ones who at least try to treat women with dignity and class, bust their asses for the benefit of their brotherhood and chapter, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for charitable causes - basically, they are the ones that strive to honor the men who created their brotherhoods that they are in now.

Oh yeah, when I'm not going on rants about the current state of Greek Life, the government, social issues, etc. I try to do some creative writing.  I have been told that my stuff is very rhythmic, which is funny because I have not a single gram of rhythm in my body.  But it is what it is.  So, I guess you will have that to look forward to in future rants and reveals to come.