At Thanksgiving, I learned that my cousin has been the captain of his riflery team for the past three years. I also learned that my great grandfather was the head of the big D.D. Jones trucking company in Norfolk. DD stands for "Darling Divine." There are a few large estates owned by old English families with those names, so in the South their descendants started to name their children "Darling" and "Divine" in the hopes that they could end up with their proper English inheritance someday. Southern family ties are so arcane.

My other cousin, who has been in graduate school studying the link between Javanese and Sanskrit for about two years, is now thinking about dropping out because it "isn't relevant." My cousin Liz, one of my best friends growing up, has a job lined up after graduation to be an actuary for an insurance company receiving $65,000/year. That makes the third one of my friends making upwards of 60K. When I started to sulk about my lack of direction my brother smacked me upside the head and told me that coming from Towson High school I had to make a very conscious decision in order to Not make that much money. He's right. I've always been the righteous hippy of the family, now everyone else gets to have the last laugh when they as me what I'm doing and I say I'm planning on joining the circus. My uncle started complaining about "those damn pollution cleanup laws" and how he now more or less owns the side of a very dirty mountain in Utah. My aunt, to break the awkward silence, started talking about her water aerobics class, and in response my father piped up with "I just read about some water an-aerobics classes they're giving down in Guantanamo."

Last week we had a general strike against the war at Macalester. It was amazing that 400 people showed up; and it also was disappointing that 400 people showed up. It is true: we don't have to sacrifice anything for this war. We don't even have to suffer a guilty conscience if we just don't read the newspaper. I'm sure that in fifty years Iraq will look like one of the more barbaric periods of United States history. Afterwards we staged a protest of about 100 people at a major intersection. We started to block it, drivers got angry, the police came, and the poor dean of students had to come and negotiate with all of them. I don't know, with my research about Sudan and Iraq and the carbon sinks, I just don't want anything to do with petroleum anymore. Flying home I felt dirty knowing how much was fun stuff coming out of the airplane's engines. I wonder how long I'll have to feel guilty before I really figure something out.

This is cool:http://www.planetizen.com/node/24990. California is suing its muncipalities for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by suburban sprawl.



"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I rise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

E.B. White

Amelia has a yellow living room with traces of hunting decor, a wood stove, a french press, a banjo, and an entire bedroom with an underwater theme. I don't think I've ever been so enamored with someone else's material culture in my life. When we blustered into Iowa City with the Minnesota wind at our backs, we were greeted by a rendition of "Crimson and Clover" on bass, accordian, guitar, banjo, and musical saw. We ate shot-dead rabbit in ballroom gowns at suppertime, and photographed ourselves doing it. The lifestyle she has crafted out of the hodge-podge and cornfields of the mid-West proves that there is no excuse for disenchantment with life.

The next day we made marzipanimals, which had me convinced that this recurring motif is some sort of a sign from the powers that be--my spirit animal is the marzipanimal. Holly and Megan also made it out from Chicago...somehow all of them have made these so-fun-they-can't-possibly-be-meaningful endeavors into eerily effective ways of influencing others. It'd be nice to document my metamorphosis from a critic to a believer in art; I guess I've still got aways to go in that regard, but my course is charted. Talking to Moana the plant scientist about the micro-something-isms that she studies, as well as the philosophical underpinnings of her interest, has reminded me, as I often need to be, that the world is full of pages left unturned and every pair of eyes reads something totally unique in every landscape.

My old boss told me once that in life it's easy to criticize, but you are more effective if you figure out what you are for instead of what you're against. That was paraphrased rather awkwardly, but in the past few days it has click-click-clicked. If anything, this school has taught me to articulate opinions--and now I'm trying to concentrate on withholding judgement. It's important to take a stand, but I think all too often I have merely accepted whatever opinion that I, as a liberal, ought to have emblazened on my chest. I fly the liberal flag and recite the liberal pledge of allegiance and march lock-step to the "beat of my own drummer."

If anything, being abroad sort of taught me that disconcerting statistics are probably the wrong basis for a career. I don't really believe anymore that there are some people who make a difference and some people who don't; nor that this difference can be measured in numbers or prestige; or if it can even be witnessed by others in the first place. I don't really believe that a poor farmer is making less of a difference than the head of the World Bank. The World Bank may be wider-spread, but in the end his influence can only be a mile wide and an inch deep. Not that one is better than the other. Simply re-phrasing life's mission from "alleviating suffering" to "creating joy" has worked wonders on my ability to go to sleep at night.

Gumdrops of grandeur in DC, sugarplums of organic farms in Portland dance through my head.

Today I finally presented the Sudan Divestment proposal to the committee, and the sniper who I was expecting to shoot it down with a few curt remarks actually pulled me aside and whispered that it was "very good." I jumped for joy. I think working with Jimmy, who is from Sudan, at my side has helped so much...sometimes it feels arcane to be advocating on the behalf of a friend when your only perception of a situation is in terrifying headlines and not shared experience.

I am proctoring an exam. It makes me feel important. I passed out Starbursts, which is a deliberate and undisguised attempt to win the favor of the class. Soon the world will be mine. The Proctologist conquers all.

Over the course of hte past month, I have managed to help fix something like ten or twelve bikes, and I've managed to damage about twice that number. The ratios are getting worse and worse as I venture further into bottom brackets and hubs. The community class that I'm taking down at Sibley is pretty great; there are a few high quality old ladies with whom to banter and cackle. One is convinced that the best way to get people to stop driving is to get Oprah to go on a tour, and suggests that the revolution is impossible without her. The other talks about her Reiki energy therapist as she nibbles Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'm sort of conflicted about how to spend my time; that place has so much potential, could be really great for that neighborhood, but I, unfortunately have no idea what I'll be doing with my life. The subtle desire to feel recognizably legitimate and smart is an irritating voice to have whispering in your ear; it led me to consider dumb things like law school and Fulbrights for far too long.

I went to a conference on socially responsible investing in Philadelphia last weekend; this time with two other Mac students and a story of triumph under my arm. It was deeply satisfying to present among other successes and to be flattered by other students attempting community banking schemes off of "The Macalester Model," but I felt guilty receiving credit for something that took so much work on the part of the administration. In any case, it meant a lot to me to show the folks who inspired me in the first place that they truly are having an effect on the world.

What stood out about the weekend was staying at the house of the people who started the Responsible Endowments Coalition, a few twenty-somethings that I really admire for their bravery and diligence in founding the 'movement.' I saw that they are scattered and unfocused like me. They aren't necessarily machines of efficiency; they leave papers for the last minute in favor of making animals out of marzipan, Afro-Cuban dancing, and conversations about poop. Ryan's attic seemed to be an archeological testament to fleeting passions come and gone; Eurekas gone stale, like so many garages and basements tend to become...pottery wheels, scuba gear, bike parts, yerba mate pots, protest signs, herb gardens, harmonicas, Esperanto...successful people have also seen many dead-ends and failures. I often get down on myself for not being focused enough and think that if I could only choose one thing on which to spend my energy, I could make a dent. But varied interests truly do feed into one another to make you a more effective and whole person; it was so clear that Morgan's singing contributed to her confidence in communicating with others and her strength in the face of uncertainty. Someone flattered me by saying that our voices and mannerisms were similar, so I drooled over her mouth contortions for the rest of the weekend. Anyway, that's beside the point: Didn't Ben Franklin both help found the United States AND discover electricity? Wouldn't Thomas Edison's garage be even more shameful than my father's? I guess I just started to feel a lot better about the way that I live my life.

It is likewise enlightening to have friends who "have it together" to remind me that ducks in a row aren't necessarily what would make me happy. Sometimes I convince myself that if I could wake up on time, if I would do all of my reading, if I were skinny and wore nicer clothes, if I kept in touch with my Grandmother, if I practiced the banjo every day, if I had a boyfriend instead of romantic ambiguities, if I had a plan for after graduation--I would be more satisfied with life. NOT TRUE. (the capitals are indeed warranted.) Empirical evidence demonstrates that I am significantly happier than many of my more composed acquaintances.

This summer I became so confident in my ability to be happy when I'm by myself that I built a healthy habit of passing up relationships that promise to be anything less than mutually beneficial. I am proud and feel like telling the whole cyber-world. Girl power.

Speaking of girl power. I was recently convinced to join the board of a non-profit community bike shop. Jason is headed South for the winter, leaving behind three gray-haired old men and me to bicker in the cold. Today I contra-danced with an over-the-hill kook in an eighties t-shirt and last week I babysat for a Quaker meeting group that concluded with a children's activity that involved wearing diapers on our heads. I guess it takes a kook to know a kook.