Systems

Something happened this week. There was a conversation about this cupcake protest and someone mentioned to me that if we all would just stop paying attention to race, racism wouldn't even be an issue. That the way to fight the system is to prove to people that we are more than our skin color. Fight the stereotypes, be successful, and then "they'll" like and accept us.
I didn't respond. I'd already told the person we'd just agree to disagree, but that comment? It's been bugging me since because people are still looking at my skin and my name and my sex as if they're bad things, as if they're the opposite of privilege. The thing is that if it's true that ignoring it and doing the "right thing" will prevent this treatment, I'm not sure where I've failed.

I've spent a lot of my life proving people wrong:

Third grade rolls around and they ask me to take a test to show that I speak English. Yeah, I'll do it. Let's ignore the fact that last year I took a test that put me in my elementary school's gifted and talented program; I'll go ahead and prove to you that I have mastered your language.

In middle school, I was in a special program for gifted and talented students and my English teacher told me that I was the smartest minority girl she'd ever taught. Um, what?

High school teachers and counselors steered me away from advanced classes - not in my HS in Germany, just the one in VA. I didn't listen, and took the classes anyway. I was in NHS and German Honor Society. Oh, and I studied German in high school, because my parents weren't going to let me study a language I already knew and spoke and it just made sense.
In my spare time, I get harassed by cops for walking around with my (Latino) friends at a football game and / or attending my (Latino) church youth group.

College. I came in with something like eighteen credits approved. I was part of my school's Honors program. I made dean's list almost every semester after my freshman year and graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.7 or something like that. No "C's get degrees" for me. Oh, and my freshman year a girl flat out tells me, "I don't like you because you're Puerto Rican." Mmmkay... Thanks?
I graduated in five years, but only because I took a year and a half off in the middle: one year to volunteer and a semester to earn some money while working for the federal government.

I worked for three years as a Spanish teacher at a public school. I replied tactfully or shut up when my colleagues and / or superiors made comments about our immigrant students, or the "barrio" by the ESL classrooms (I wish I weren't quoting), or when people told me Puerto Ricans didn't know how to speak. Meanwhile, my Latino students were discouraged from taking advanced courses, being guided, instead to Auto Mechanics and Child Care. Security barged in to accuse one of my kids of vandalizing a bathroom when he'd been in my room the whole time. I saw two of my students being roughed up by cops for walking around in the evening. Oh, and this happened.

I went to grad school, and did really well, surprisingly enough. I cried my way through a Cross Cultural Skills class. I fell in love with a white man. I got stared at - not in a friendly way - when I went to the grocery store in my very white neighborhood. I was pulled over because a cop didn't think I should've been in my neighborhood at night.

I taught in Philly. I was told that "some students" shouldn't be held to the same standards, because, really, when were they ever going to use the information I was teaching them? Seriously?

So what I'm saying is that there's a flaw in this type of logic. I've done the right things. I'm well educated, well traveled, well read. I'm intelligent, middle-class, decently attractive. If I'm following the logic that being successful will make people ignore my skin and my heritage, then I should not be dealing with racism at all. Not ever. Not in my life, not in the lives of the people around me.
And yet, I've been yelled at to leave my own country, I've been told that my language isn't worth learning, I've dealt with the reality of being in a relationship with a white man, and I've been utterly exhausted by the dynamics of oppression.

What I'm saying is, I've played by the rules. I've done it even though it's hurt me and I sometimes wonder why I've had to give in and shut up and go along in order to be successful. Does it sometimes make me feel like I've sold out? Yeah, sometimes. But do I also think that I'm subverting the system in some way? Yeah. Put me in your stereotype box, sucker: I listen to country, salsa, and hip hop on the same playlist. But those rules? Those rules did NOT undo the system. It's going to take a lot more than that for me to, oh, I don't know, be paid the same amount as a white man in the same field.
What I'm saying is that I'm not going to feel guilty for believing that there's a system at play here and that said system goes beyond individual actions and beliefs. It's about the fact that people will react to my last name before they react to my educational background. It's about the fact that even though I have zero plans to have children, possible employers are worried about how soon I'm going to want to be on maternity leave. And I've done what I can, I've fought for myself and I've fought for others and I'll keep fighting.

It still matters. It's still important to note our privileges because we all have them. And you know what else is important? Finding ways to shed those privileges, or to subvert them, at least. And it's important that in the areas where we're at a disadvantage that we push and push and fight. And there will be tears and exhaustion and pain, but it's important. Because the sooner we recognize that there's a deeply flawed system at work, the sooner we can begin to live in opposition to it.

Remembering Ayer

I feel like I've been a different person since we moved to Costa Rica. I feel like I don't really know myself, like I can't trust myself. That's a hard thing. Part of it - most of it - is my self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder; the cold and rain are really getting to me.
Another part is just missing. Missing family and friends, missing hot water, missing the little things....
The rest?
Well, let's just say that I keep a lot of things inside. I keep going. Al mal tiempo, buena cara. Lift your chin, throw your shoulders back, and walk with a confidence you don't feel. It's hard; it's supposed to be hard. Get over it and get on with it.
So this is what I do, day after day, month after month.
This isn't about me. The work isn't for me. So I push this aside and keep going. And today talking to B about this, he makes me wonder if this is the right way to go about it or not. I don't know.
I don't know.

I stumbled across this post - nearly four years old - and remembered how hard that time was. This time is also hard. Really hard. And the poem? It still speaks to me. So here it is again:

Ayer - historia de un vuelo 

Ayer lo vi.
Ayer, domingo, aunque él no lo sabía.
Lo vi con las alas estrechadas
flotando sobre las corrientes de aire que yo
jamás conoceré.
Lo vi y en ese momento,
con el viento fresco de otoño molestándome los ojos,
sentí una nostalgía tan profunda.
Nostalgía casi inapropiada
porque nunca he conocido lo que se siente
allá.
Arriba.
Lejos de todo, de todos, de la gravedad que me mantiene aquí
estancada.
Pero en ese momento, viéndolo flotando
sin mover esas alas enormes,
qué celos me han entrado.
Es lo único que anhelo.
Lo único que anhelé ayer, lo único que sigo anhelando:
flotar
sobre esas mismas corrientes de aire
sentir ese vientecito molestándome los ojos y llorar sin pena sabiendo
que allá nadie me verá.
Nadie me dirá que
sobreviviré.
Que saldré de ésta.
Que puedo encontrar algo - alguien - mejor.
A él nadie le dice eso.
Cuando viene ese viento
a agitarle las lágrimas, él las puede soltar
sin pena alguna.
Qué libertad plena.
Ayer lo vi
y mi alma se encogió, adolorida por el anhelo,
la nostalgía,
los celos.
Lo quise seguir hasta allá
hasta el cielo inmenso, azul y frío
en esta época (noviembre, el mes más solitario de todos),
y volar.
Volar, volar, volar hasta escaparme de su recuerdo,
hasta escaparme de mi debilidad tan obvia y vergonzosa,
hasta escaparme del dolor que me ahoga.
Y mientras volara, lloraría.
¿Lloraría?
¿Al frente de tal libertad?
¿Lloraría?
Quizás no.
No, no.
Solamente me quedaría volar para
poder aprender a respirar
nuevamente,
para aprender a querer nuevamente,
para aprender a ser
igualita a él.
Ayer lo vi.
Y hoy me sostiene ese recuerdo.
Estoy estrechando alas metafóricas,
flotando sobre corrientes que me suben y me bajan.
Sobreviviré.
Eso lo supe desde un principio.
Pero lo que quiero no es sobrevivir, sino
vivir.
Vivir en una libertad plena.
Respirando profundamente del aire que me sostiene
sin importarme lo que me digan.
Si me toma meses de supervivencia para
que llegue la vida, que así sea.
Días, meses, años
- ay, Diosito mío, que no sean años -
de supervivencia, esperaré.
Porque estas alas algún día me
llevarán lejos de aquí.
Flotaré.
Escaparé.
Viviré.
Como lo anhelé ayer.

Tired

I'm tired. I'm tired of not having my own space, of working the proverbial double shift, of having no way to go anywhere. I'm tired of the isolation. Tired of not having a tv. Tired of running things. Tired of the never ending to do list. Tired of translating. Tired of budgeting. Tired of planning every moment of every day. Tired of joint decision making. Tired, tired, tired.

And it sounds like I'm whining, and I am. But I've been fighting this for a long time, and today, today it all caught up with me, and it's just too much. I need a break. Desperately, urgently, hopelessly need a break. And the reason it's rubbing me raw right now, is because I just don't see that break coming any time soon.

I need a moment alone. A moment - or several - alone with my husband. A day or two or seven in the city or on the beach. I need a full weekend. I need some time to just sit and be lazy. I need to not cook twice a day for a little while. I need to breathe. I need space to just sit down and have a good cry just to let something out, not because I'm actually sad.

I am tired.

Reflection on my complete and utter exhaustion

Suspiro.
Respiro.
El corazón me pesa.
Duele respirar.
Lo que más quiero es dormir
para apaciguar este cansancio interminable.
Pero el sueño no lo calma
y esa pesadez persiste.
Suspiro.
Respiro.
Siento que el aire no pasa,
que en vez de sostenerme, me
atraganta.
Otro día más del jueguito,
del -sí señor,
de comprometer mi esencia de ser.
Suspiro.
Respiro.
Un aire contaminado
por los pecados del pueblo:
mi pueblo, el pueblo que me
ha rechazado, de los pueblos
que existen en proximidad
pero no en unidad.
Suspiro.
Respiro.
Esperando el día que esto se aclare,
que ya no me duela,
que no me canse
el respirar.
Respiro.
Suspiro.
El día aún no ha llegado.

Things I'm workin' on or workin' out

1. Resting in God.
2. Not focusing on the obvious brokenness of systems, and instead looking at what is doable on a small scale.
3. Remembering that this mess isn't mine to fix.
4. Trusting God to work out the details.
5. Balancing school, relationships, time with God, and "me time".
6. Facing all those unfinished areas of my life; coming back in contact with my own selfishness and materialism and stupidity.
7. Realizing that those are the areas where God really works.
8. (Re)learning to be less guarded, that vulnerability takes strength, that it is not weak to show emotion. Such a hard one for me.

You know, among other things....

Also, I may have run over a squirrel the other day on my way to school. He was ambivalent about which curb to run to, and I was coming around a curve a bit too quickly. There was a car in the other lane coming towards me and swerving was not an option. Poor little, ambivalent squirrel. He's been in my head since it happened....

Schooled

In the interest of honesty, I've really been struggling this past week and a half to be okay with where I live. It felt almost like betrayal to find out that I was the only MY alum living somewhere else - a bit melodramatic, to be sure, but that was my initial reaction.
Wayne isn't the kind of place I would've picked out on my own, you know? But I'm really trying to believe that I'm here for a reason; which is not to say that I can see that reason, just that I believe that it's out there - somewhere.
The point, and the realization that I'm coming to (again), is that God doesn't live in West Philly, or in VA, or in the ATL, or in PR, or even in Wayne. God lives outside of space and time. I can have that community here, too. It might not be the same, but it's something just as real. Sometimes I'm real cabezona, as we say en buen puertorriqueño: I'm hard-headed. A reluctant learner, if you will.
But I am learning. Not just in the academic, classroom, hours-in-my-reading-chair sense, but also in that day-to-day, stumbling, searching sense.
This is one of those situations where all my inadequacies and insecurities come out and Dios me pule. Things happen, I change, I grow, I learn. We're gettin' somewhere.

Notes on a (vicariously taken) Latin American Journey

I finally got a copy of "The Motorcycle Diaries" last Thursday, which I have been meaning to read for ages. I finished it on Tuesday - it was better than I'd expected it to be. I mean, the movie was magnificent: the story and the breathtaking landscapes of Latin America are the kinds of things that stir my heart. That, and the brilliance of Gael García Bernal.
But the book! There's so much in it about that connection with the mestizo and indigenous heritage of Latin America that I fell in love with. I do feel a connetion and affinity for my Taíno heritage. I've always been interested in it, even as a kid. Anyway, there's this rediscovery on his part of the origins of Latin America - the part that so many have tried to erase over centuries of colonization and oppression. Now I'm sounding a bit radical - which I'm not, not really.

But there's this beauty in the connection of Latinos, and in the sophistication of the tribes that were originally found in México, el Caribe, Central and South America, that I love. And that's what spoke to me as I was following Che before he was Che from Argentina to Chile, through Perú, and onward to Colombia and Venezuela (with an accidental detour into the Brazilian Amazon).
This has always been my favorite part of the movie, and it's the thing that sums up the book for me: Ernesto's toast on his final night in the lepers' colony in Perú:

"Although our insignificance means we can't be spokespeople for such a noble cause, we believe, and after this journey more firmly than ever, that the division of America into unstable and illusory nations is completely fictionalal. We constitute a single mestizo race, which from Mexico to the Magellan Straits bears notable ethnographical similariteis. And so, in an attempt to rid myself of the weight of small-minded provincialism, I propose a toast to Peru and to a United Latin America."

Yes, there's staggering diversity in Latin America, but the truth is that our shared history and our common language and that commonality of mixed blood unites us as well. Not, of course, that I'm advocating some new "Bolivarian" revolution a là Huguito (Chávez of Venezuela), but that I do believe we should, as nations and as individuals, help one another. We are, in a sense, brothers and sisters.

Inmigración - Europa y las Américas

"Papeles Mojados" by Chambao
Here we have a song about illegal immigration to Spain. She's saying "What would you do in their shoes?" There's all this injustice, poverty, war, disease.... Wouldn't you risk it, too? Many don't make it, but those who do just want a better life. And across the pond....

"Mojado" by Ricardo Arjona and Intocable
Same story, different continent.

I could throw in "Visa para un sueño" by Juan Luis Guerra and it'd still be the same, with a slightly different geographical focus (DR-PR). The thing is, it sucks to be the stranger in every case. There are valid reasons for this movement of people, and though it can't continue unchecked, closing borders does nothing to resolve the underlying problems (economic and political instability, injustice, poverty, violence, disease, etc.).

Band-aids aren't enough.

Voces Inocentes

First off, I don't care what anyone says: I love Alejandra Guzman. She's crazy, dresses like a fool, and could impale someone with those hipbones, but she's written some pretty fantastic stuff. Such a rockstar!

Now, something a bit more substantial:
I was watching Voces inocentes in class this week and last, and was once again struck by the beauty of the priest's words as he stands outside his church, after the attack on the school, after his church has been shot at, after he's been beaten by the soldiers. The whole village is standing outside the doors of the church, and he tells them they won't have Mass that day, but that he'll speak to them there so that those who haven't found faith yet can also hear the Word of God. And what he says there has always been the most amazing thing to me. I wish that I could transmit the whole speech, but this is the part that most gets to me:

"Los escépticos dicen: 'Si Dios existiera, no habría guerras', y yo les contesto que si los hombres obedecieran las leyes de Dios, entonces no habría guerras....Cuando se vive en la gracia de Dios, no existe la guerra.... Es el momento de que alcemos nuestra voz....Ya no basta con rezar."

"The skeptics say, 'if there were a God, there would be no war', and I respond, if men obeyed God's laws, then there would be no wars....When we live in God's grace, wars cease to exist....It's time to raise up our voices.... It's not enough to pray."

Here's the clip, sans subtitles. Fast forward to about 7:57.... Unfortunately it cuts off the very end of the speech, so click on the second video to catch it.

Moving....

I'm exhausted. Thursday rocked, Friday sucked, and I'm moving this weekend.

Not moving everything, mind you, just all the essentials. I'll be back for the furniture later.

This is all part of my plan to save money for grad school, which will begin in August. Geez, there is something absolutely terrifying about moving back in with the parents. I've been gone since I was 18 and I'm now 25, nearly 26. It's been a loooong time of no supervision, coming and going as I please, and listening to cds with parental advisories.

My parents are SO Puerto Rican. Sometimes I worry that I'll have to answer to them about every dime I spend and everything I do. Did I say sometimes? I worry about that A LOT. Don't get me wrong, my parents are wonderful people - my mother is one of my best friends - but they are still parents. They don't always remember that they've already done their job, and done it well.

So yeah, basically, I'll be around less often as I transition.

Wish me luck!

Skeletons in the closet

I've finally got my New Year's Resolutions figured out: working on the skeletons in my closet. I'm dealing with my walls, with the emotional distance I set up between myself and others.... I've been talking to S a lot about this. This is the email that I sent him today:

I guess it's just that I'm coming to a place where I realize how much further I
still have to go. Puerto Rico:S::Atlanta:Frances Joy. I love that I could throw
an analogy in there. Basically, you grappled with your issues and got a kick in
the pants in PR, my big changes started in the ATL.
I remember getting back
from Costa Rica and literally saying, "I don't want to be comfortable anymore".
And off I went. It was the hardest year of my life, but it was the one time in
my life where I've felt like I was in the perfect place at the perfect time and
doing things that really mattered. I kind of felt that way about work last year,
too.
This year has been much more of a struggle. Between J, all the changes
at work, the possibility of moving, the friction with my parents, and the attack
of the exes (meant with as much love as I have for you both); I've been faced
with all those rough edges that ATL had started sanding down. Does that make
sense?
Basically PR and ATL were a beginning. They were a turning point -
good times, good lessons - but by no means the end of the journey. Maybe it's
just a quarter-life crisis, coupled with a healthy dose of SAD in my case, but
better to do all this sorting out now than to do it at forty.
I know what I
want and I have some plans to get there. The thing is that I've been telling
myself I'm much more confident than I really am. I've still been hiding all
those broken things in me. There's a part of me that doesn't really believe I
deserve everything I want. The thing that I need to work on is realizing that it
doesn't matter if I deserve it or not. I'm rediscovering grace, I think, which
is still the hardest part of my faith for me to accept. Gosh, I'm a terrible
Christian... Ha, ha.
I think Philly is a big part of this transformation - I
mean, even the decision to go. It's easy to be comfortable, but I'm at that
point where I'm saying "I don't want to be comfortable - or even slightly
uncomfortable." I want to get kicked out of my element and thrown into my
future. I want to learn to deal with all those things that terrify me - to stand
in the face of those giants and stare them down. I've got to get some emotional
bb guns to match the physical ones. ;) I need to get some confidence that
doesn't rest on pretty or smart, or even pretty and smart; I need confidence
based in an assurance of unconditional love. I'm definitely grappling with some
spiritual issues here as well....
What I wish I could remember is that when
I'm on better footing with God, I'm on better footing in all areas of my life. I
think I kind of kicked Him out when I started getting involved with J. Not
kicked Him out, but pushed Him aside. When I do that, I lose that sense of worth
- it's an easy thing for me to lose. The main thing I remember about why ATL was
so right is because I stopped stressing over every aspect. I just let go and let
God handle it. I need to be better about that.
I really didn't mean for this
email to head in this direction, but that's where I ended up. Go figure. I
process by writing. Anyway, I talk too much, and I don't know if any of this
made sense at all, but that's where I'm at - similar to where you are, I
think.... Good to know I'm not the only one.

So that's me right now... Working on me, working on grace, working on love....

Story of my life....

Another song for my current soundtrack.


Why is it that songs can sum up everything I'm feeling and thinking when I can't even put those things into words?

Still formulating my goals for 2008, but I'm sure that this song could point me in the right direction. Okay, I'm gonna go be productive now.

Mission Year/Mission Life. Love God. Love people. Nothing else matters.

So I got an email from the President of Mission Year, my old friend, Leroy. He asked the ATL alums to write him a letter kind of summing up our Mission Year exprience/the effect it had on our lives, and I couldn't resist. One thing: it had be a page. I can't limit myself to a page when it comes to Mission Year. There's too much to say about it, but I tried my hand at this, and this is what I came up with (slightly over a page, btw):
Dear Leroy,

It’s been years since I returned from Atlanta – almost three and a half years, actually. Mission Year was one of the most difficult experiences of my life, but it’s also the one thing that I can point back to and say “That changed the course of my life forever”. Maybe that sounds a little melodramatic, but it’s the holiday season and it’s been a long day at work, so it sounds right to me at this moment. I think back on all the other things that I’ve done in my life, and nothing has had such a profound effect on me as Mission Year.
I’ve always said that Mission Year ruined my life in a good way. Even now, three years out, with cable television and a car and a life in the suburbs, my life is radically different because of my experience in Atlanta . It took me a while to get over my suburban guilt, I won’t lie, but in the end, I decided that Mission Year wasn’t meant to make me feel bad about living in the suburbs. It was about exposing me to reality, forcing me to look at society and my individual role in it; and making me realize that life is ministry. That’s where I am today. Yes, I’m living in Northern Virginia , but I’m carrying on with the ideals of Mission Year: I live and work in the same neighborhood. It’s where I shop, where I hang out, where I spend my time. I have a vested interest in my community. Maybe I’m not buddy-buddy with my next door neighbor, but I know this community. I hurt for it, I care about it, I need it to work. Here’s the thing: it’s the same community that I was completely unattached to pre-Mission Year. In fact, I loathed this community. Not even kidding. But now that I’m back, I can see that God cares for this place, too. God wants to work here, too. And the other thing: it’s far from perfect. The problems I learned about in the city are here in the suburbs, and as my particular community experiences a shift in demographics, it’s becoming harder and harder to hide these issues.
I’m currently in my third year of teaching, a career that I say I stumbled into by accident, though I know full well this was no accident. I teach at a local public high school where I’m one of ten over-worked and under-paid “World Language” teachers and one of two teachers who work with the Spanish for Native Speakers program. That alone should give you an idea of the types of kids I work with. In a community that is quickly becoming more anti-Latino, I have the privilege of instilling pride in these children: pride in their culture, in their language, in all that they are and can become. I remember at the closing retreat saying through tears – thanks Mission Year – that I wanted to do something for “my people”. And that’s what God has me doing here, in the community I thought I hated. I see the problems of the inner city here as well: violence, single parents, poverty, gangs…. I can still be involved in working for social justice; I can still work one-on-one with these struggling kids and point towards something better, something beyond this reality.
That’s Mission Year’s legacy.
And I really mean that it ruined my life in a good way. I can’t sit by and watch all this happen; I have to do something. I can’t store up material things because there’s so much need elsewhere. I mean, Mission Year even messed up my dating: I am now terminally single and entirely too picky. Just kidding! I’m hoping it’s not a terminal condition, but the pickiness is totally true. Alright, I’m on my way to being over the one-page limit, so I’m going to wrap this up, though I’m still going to move on to page two. In addition to the work of the past three years, I’m hoping to continue on in my “Mission Life” by earning a Masters in International Development. Not only did Mission Year ruin my undergraduate career, but it may also ruin my graduate studies. What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment. Of course, that all depends on whether or not I can ever figure out how to write curriculum vitae.

And seriously, Leroy and the rest of the Mission Year family, thanks. Because even though at times it sucked and I hated it, Mission Year is the best experience of my life thus far.


That is what I sent back to him. It's not exactly what I expected to write, but that's the course it took. I'd planned to be more witty, because in person I like to think I'm pretty clever and fairly amusing, though this doesn't always translate well into written communication without the use of - God forbid! - emoticons. Instead it's about community, which was the hardest thing and the best thing about Mission Year. It is what it is.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about all the other things I could have said after writing it. I could have said something about J, and the fact that what I love about him (did I just say that?) is that he's passionate about all the crazy kids I'm passionate about, that he loves to work with them, that he also tries to understand them and connect with them. I think we both do in our own ways.... Anyway, it must've been that terminally single thing that set me off thinking about J. Even if officially we're not anything, I don't feel totally single because of him. He's someone who lives out a lot of the MY ideals that I hold dear, and that's a rare thing. Also rare, the baggage he's bringing with him. Good news/bad news. *sigh* It is what it is.

More things I wish I'd said: that I still drive a 1991 Toyota Corolla (with a leaking radiator) because I don't see the point in trading up; that the friendships I forged in MY are some of the strongest ones that I have; that I still refer to Atlanta as the best year of my life. I love, love, love my job, I spent an amazing summer in Vietnam, I do so many things, but nothing compares to the rightness of place/occupation/company that I experienced in Atlanta.

And about those friendships, my two former roomies are absolutely the first people I turn to when I need help. They know me better than anyone else. Better than my parents. No joke. Atlanta was the first place where I felt like I was fully myself. Not that I was frontin' my whole life, just that in Atlanta I began to experience a vulnerability I'd never let myself feel before. I was more flawed and broken there than anywhere else, but at the same time, I was more perfect and beautiful.

I don't want to relive the experience; I know that's impossible, and it was so hard that I don't want to go back, but I appreciate every moment. The comments as I walked down the streets, the scent of hot asphalt and diesel, the symphony of gunshots and train whistles every night... So much happened. So much beauty and growth and education. I love it. Seriously, it changed my life.

There's no way I could sum up the impact of Mission Year on my life in one page. I'm still sorting through it all. Gathering (that makes me think of J. straightening quizzes on his desk...) my thoughts. Three and a half years out, I'm still wrapping my brain about the profound impact of Mission Year on my life. That's a good thing. Really, it is.

Anyway, this is getting much too long. Check out Mission Year, if you haven't already. If you're tired of the status quo, of coasting through life, of sitting by - it's for you.