for america

Its official, I'm PT Americorps for JAS and YF.

Had my first JAS meeting to try to figure out what some of my roles will be. It sounds like I'll just be stepping into all kinds of stuff:
-making phone calls to get people to come out
-being the literacy specialist in the East African Circle
-facilitating Wed. nights in EAC
-continuing oral history project
-helping with dinner and dialogues
-possibly doing orientations for new folks to the EAC
-data entry for attendance

tomorrow is a corps day from 9 to 12:30 so I'll be meeting with other americorps folk.

i'll keep y'alls posted on what comes up.
in the mean time, just chew on the fact that I got a haircut.

obey

Half an hour ago I told Cate I was done blogging.

Maybe I'm not?


Recent stuff goings on around the environs:

Done with classes. Don't have a degree. Still must write thesis.

Christmas with the fam was mostly ugly. But I did play the hell out of Tony Hawk Underground. And gifts were good. Thanks to those who gave me fantastic gifts. This has included:
-Rare Mingus at Monterey double-LP on vinyl from Cate

-Shawn made some bowls
-funky-ass lamp from folks
-skateboard deck. yay! Mine is the one on the far left. They were designed by the same guy that does the whole "OBEY" thing. You know the thing, right?


-monopoly. this can only lead to the best kind of trouble. thanks cyn.
-other stuff.

deciding between two very different scenarios:
1. Working full-time at HECUA for three months at 12.40/hour doing recruitment. Possible regular employment to follow and the time to be apprentice instructor at Philosophy Camp.
2. Part-time Americorps position with Jane Addams School and YouthFarm making $400 a month through August. Would have to work part time outside this: in the Spring continuing doing the HECUA MUST Student Representative thing I did this fall. Easier to finish thesis this way. But Broke.

I went the second option.
Check out these website if you want to know more about the three organizations:
Jane Addams School
Youth Farm
Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA)
I won't start officially until Jan. 4th which has led to a long stretch of unemployment. Strangely, I'm not completely bored and have still managed to be somewhat productive: taking care of things on the to-do list and cleaning our home.

I have been reading quite a bit lately. The last month or so has seen the completion of Martin Buber's "I and Thou," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Fidel Castro's "In Defense of Socialism," Ronald Heifetz's "Leadership Without Easy Answers," and a collection called "Grundtvig's Ideas in North America."
Currently reading Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." I haven't read Steinbeck in 8 years, I hated him back then, having read "The Pearl" "Of Mice and Men" and "The Red Pony," but have to admit I'm enjoying "Grapes."

Also managed to write a research paper on the role of music in social movements and get my IRB application in on time.

Oh yeah, we also had one of the best semesters of recruitment from the U of M for HECUA's domestic program. MUST pulled in 7 and City Arts had 10. It was the first time MUST's total enrollement for the year was over 30 (it was 34), which is the minimum the board wants.

Cate and I celebrated three years together on Dec. 20th. Last night we finally went out to Everest on Grand to mark the occasion, then tried ice skating at Powderhorn. It was some of the worst ice I've ever seen, and for December the fucking 27th its just ridiculous. My unemployment would be a lot more fun if I could head over to the rink during the day.

The Somali Islamist forces kinda got too big for their britches and the U.S. backed Ethiopian (and Christian) forces kinda kicked their asses. The "transitional goverment" may gain control of Mogadishu. If you haven't been following this story you should.

bookie

This book?
























Fantastic. A page-turner if there ever was one.

I think I remember Cyn recommending this, but I finally borrowed a copy from Tory. I needed to fall into a book bad. Last week was hella hectic and I was exhausted. I need Phil time: to wrap myself into a book, get centered and focused, and drop some of my other committments.

The book has a great plot, the premise is original and playful, and it blends in some incredibly interesting mythology.

Other books kinda being read right now:

Palestine by Joe Sacco. Graphic journalism about Sacco's stay in Palestine around 91-92.

I and Thou by Martin Buber. Some theology mixed in with a philosophy of relating to the world and each other as "Thou"s and not "It"s. Heavy on importance of dialogue. I know I'm not understanding most of this book.

And extended passage from Buber:

I consider a Tree.
I can look on it as a picture: stiff column in a shock of light, or splash of green shot with the delicate blue and silver of the background.
I can percieve it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of the roots,breathing of the leaves, ceaseless commerce with earth and air -- and the obscure growth itself.
I can classify it in a species and study it as a type in its structure and mode of life.
I can subdue its actual presence and form so sternly that I recognise it only as an expression of law-- of the laws in accordance with which a constant opposition of forces is contiually adjusted, or of those in accordance with which the component substances mingle and seperate.
I can dissipate it and perpetuate it in number, in pure numerical relation.
In all this the tree remains my object, occupies space and time, and has its nature and constitution.
It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it. The tree is now no longer It. I have been seized by the power of exclusiveness.
To effect this it is not necessary for me to give up any of the ways in which I consider the tree. There is nothing from which I would have to turn my eyes away in order to see, and no knowledge that I would have to forget. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species, and type, law and number, indivisibly united in this event.
Everything belonging to the tree is in this: its form and stucture, its colours, and chemical composition, its intercouse with the elements and with the stars are all present in a single whole. The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no value depending on my mood; but it is bodied ever against me and has to do with me, as I with it-- only in a different way.
Let no attempt be made to sap the strength from the meaning of the relation: relation is mutual.
The tree will have a consciousness, then similar to our own? Of that I have no experience. But do you wish, through seeming to succeed in it with yourself, once aganst to disintegrate that which cannnot be disintegrated?I encounter no soul or dryad of the tree, but the tree itself.