I just counted on one hand the "real" jobs I've had in the decade since I graduated from Berry. There are five that could qualify as real, and many more that were part-time, temporary "life undecided" sort of things. I won't bother counting the temp jobs. The real jobs have taken me on some whirlwind adventures, and, as any adventurer knows, that word is most definitely a euphemism for "how many ways could I possibly lose a limb / all my important documents / my sanity / all the pennies to my name?" on a disturbingly frequent basis. Along with the adventures and the unknown, there are some certainties, and some rituals, to the pack-and-go lifestyle.
Four of the five real jobs I've had required a phone interview and a decision, on my part as well as the institution's, sight unseen. I remember that first phone interview and the process that followed. I remember sitting in the back of my marriage and family class in college, a class I took because I was overloaded with writing intensive courses and needed a break, and working on the application form (unsurprisingly, more writing). When it came time to pack up and head north, it felt odd to book a one-way flight to an unknown destination. At some point on the too-short flight, I realized I had never seen the director of the program where I'd be working, and I hadn't asked for a picture. So, I would arrive in a new country, a new city, with just one suitcase and no idea of where to go except for a name. I figured it'd all work out fine.
In the years since then, I've boarded many more planes with little real idea of what I'd signed up for. I have been stricken with visa tremors, the body-racking shakes that accompany a less than 24-hour window when the documents needed to take off still haven't arrived. I have set up, more or less - and often less - homes on three continents. I've bought coat hangers in three countries. I have subjected myself to needle pricks in places where I understood the doctor's language and places where I was clueless. I've had chest x-rays in China, where the x-ray tech was a devoted chain smoker, and in Zambia, where the hospital's electricity cut out just before I stepped up to the machine.
The habitual international traveler is often rather quircky at best or obstinately superior at worst when it comes to packing and flying rituals, from which suitcases can best withstand the rigors of careless baggage handlers but are lightweight to folding versus rolling one's clothes. This breed of person tends to have a routine, and he or she sticks to it with religious fervor. In a life of change, it's perhaps the one thing a person can follow without compromise. And after the plane takes off anyways, any sense of control vanishes. I probably fall on the quircky rather than superior side, but no one has ever threatened to upend my packing and flying ritual. I haven't even made many trips with another traveler by my side, so it's really an untested theory.
The more interesting rituals begin for me in the first few days following arrival. Getting to China puts a person from N. America approximately 13 hours in the future. Since I went to the further ends of the country and usually took from 3 to 4 flights to get there, my total travel time was something like 30 hours, with more than half a day lost to time zone changes. When I flew to Zambia, well, I have no idea. I was awake, in transit, a long time. The direct flight from Atlanta to Jo'burg took 15 hours. The point is, I arrive dead tired. Nonetheless, the first thing that I must do on arrival is unpack - every. single. item. The jetlag, local time of day/night, and general condition of my new digs have no influence over this ritual. It must be done. Usually, I stay up all night unpacking. This is due primarily to my tiredness and my interest in seeing every item I touched in the process of packing and then realizing, "Oh no, I didn't put in _______," than my large amounts of stuff. So far, I've stuck to the two-bag rule, and my family has been generous enough to send some of the forgotten items. On my second day in country, I always venture out to explore my immediate surroundings. Depending on my arrival time and the amount of daylight, this might even happen on the first day. Some of the Chinese students who picked me up at the airport in Shantou were surprised to pass me in their van the following day. I was on the 6 bus, headed nowhere, as it turned out.
Following the arrival rituals comes all that defines life and work in a completely foreign environment. The diminishing returns strike at the moment that I decide not to stay somewhere. Those coat hangers? Yeah, I'll donate them. This winter jacket? Perhaps I won't need it where I'm going. The leftover food items get passed on to whomever would be most excited by them. If there isn't space for the books and the decorations, I'm more likely to keep the decorations since I will probably be able to find a bookstore wherever I go next. And then there's always a box or two of goodies to ship "home" (aka, my oh-so-generous parents who are still willing to store boxes of my things, and sometimes me, in the garage). These boxes are filled with crazy items, things of little value really, but that give me a sense of continuity. I can sit in my apartment in AL and sip from my 12 kuai mug from China at the table covered in a bright chitenge. My decor choices have so little to do with "market cool", which it is, and so much more with bringing all my homes under one roof. So, things get packed, donated, shipped, or tossed out, and I start over. Again. Although it sometimes seems an effort in futility, all of this restarting one's life, it has become my way of life, and I'm happy with that. I think I could keep it going for a while because, even if I have to live a half-settled existence, it has given far more than it has stolen, and I'm so grateful.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Marking Time
The one year anniversary of returning to the U.S. and attempting to make it home came and went with little acknowledgement. I forgot about it, and then remembered a couple of days later. It probably helped that I was at the beginning of Christmas vacation and my first real break. Should I be surprised that I've accomplished few of the goals I had in mind for the year as I was journeying across oceans and international date lines? Probably not.
It's more than one year in now, and all I can say that I know for certain is that I'll never pick a "forever" place. I thought I really wanted to belong somewhere and have a home. I thought things would be different this time, and better. I thought maybe this place could be the one that sticks. But it's not...or...it is. I'm trying not to see time spent here as time lost on the way to somewhere else. It's no adventure to live in a place and never unpack your bags.
While I was traveling solo in January, I spent some time reminiscing on the many places I've called home and the many jobs I've been lucky to have over the past ten years. Most of those jobs involved phone interviews and packing and boarding a plane and flying away to the new city/country/bombed-out backwoods (see: Shantou. What? Shantou, yeah, we're so backwoods, the airport that used to exist just shut down. Get a pedicab.)
(3 months later...) What was I writing? Clearly time is beating me this round. My January travels took me back to old haunts and new cities that now house friends from lives past. It was great to see so many people and catch up in a way that probably won't happen for a long time. I'm a lucky person to have such a great group of people to call friends, even if they're spread out around the country, and globe, and even if a house party with all of them present might be a tad strange. I'm thankful for these friends, the ones who have withstood time and distance. It gives a sense of coherence to my otherwise scattered life. Plus, they're just super cool people.
It's more than one year in now, and all I can say that I know for certain is that I'll never pick a "forever" place. I thought I really wanted to belong somewhere and have a home. I thought things would be different this time, and better. I thought maybe this place could be the one that sticks. But it's not...or...it is. I'm trying not to see time spent here as time lost on the way to somewhere else. It's no adventure to live in a place and never unpack your bags.
While I was traveling solo in January, I spent some time reminiscing on the many places I've called home and the many jobs I've been lucky to have over the past ten years. Most of those jobs involved phone interviews and packing and boarding a plane and flying away to the new city/country/bombed-out backwoods (see: Shantou. What? Shantou, yeah, we're so backwoods, the airport that used to exist just shut down. Get a pedicab.)
(3 months later...) What was I writing? Clearly time is beating me this round. My January travels took me back to old haunts and new cities that now house friends from lives past. It was great to see so many people and catch up in a way that probably won't happen for a long time. I'm a lucky person to have such a great group of people to call friends, even if they're spread out around the country, and globe, and even if a house party with all of them present might be a tad strange. I'm thankful for these friends, the ones who have withstood time and distance. It gives a sense of coherence to my otherwise scattered life. Plus, they're just super cool people.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
In the time that I was gone...
Twitter started.
Corn hole became a thing.
Hipsters got cool, and I missed my moment, *maybe.
The iEverything took over the world.
Friends met new people or married each other, and babies were born.
Jobs were lost and found and lost again.
The first African-American President gave an inaugural address.
Glee, Parks & Rec, Modern Family, etc. came out, and I ruined my chance to be in on the cultural conversations.
I developed wrinkles that really won't go away and started liking it when students subtract 5-7 years from my real age.
Americans started dressing like Chinese ladies in their late 50's (floral pattern shirts with clashing plaid pants, etc.).
A bunch of historical stuff that I don't momentarily recall went down.
People realized that treating fruit with chemicals might have long-term effects on us.
Greece failed and the unthinkable happened in N. Africa and challenged all everyone thought they knew.
I adapted to new countries and continents and then left them.
Corn hole became a thing.
Hipsters got cool, and I missed my moment, *maybe.
The iEverything took over the world.
Friends met new people or married each other, and babies were born.
Jobs were lost and found and lost again.
The first African-American President gave an inaugural address.
Glee, Parks & Rec, Modern Family, etc. came out, and I ruined my chance to be in on the cultural conversations.
I developed wrinkles that really won't go away and started liking it when students subtract 5-7 years from my real age.
Americans started dressing like Chinese ladies in their late 50's (floral pattern shirts with clashing plaid pants, etc.).
A bunch of historical stuff that I don't momentarily recall went down.
People realized that treating fruit with chemicals might have long-term effects on us.
Greece failed and the unthinkable happened in N. Africa and challenged all everyone thought they knew.
I adapted to new countries and continents and then left them.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Bottoms Up
I'm afraid to admit it because it just seems weird. But here goes. I'm a drink addict. Not an alcoholic, mind you (far from it, actually). At the moment, I'm working on a milk tea, and I'm thinking of having another one without sugar when I finish this cup.
As a kid, I bored easily with chewing food. I hated chewing (weird, right?), and sometimes I'd just give up mid-chew with food idling in my mouth. This laziness lead to some dinner-time show-downs and perhaps to my proclivity for choosing bread and vegetables over meat. Anyways, I always knew that I preferred almost anything in a liquid to almost anything in a solid.
I eventually outgrew my disgust for the work side of eating and whole-heartily embraced "real" food, but I still love liquids, a little too much. It's unsurprising, then, that I have tried quite a number of local drinks - from brews to salty yogurt to brown rice green tea white mustache sensha (yes, all 1 drink there) - many of which were delicious and some of which might actually bring a dead bird back to life.
There are two distinct winners in the "Worst Liquid Ever Imbibed" categories. 1 alcoholic and 1 non. The winner for the alcoholic WLEI award is Shake-Shake from Zambia. Think of chunky milk that has been left out for a while to ferment then boxed up nicely to drink. That's Shake-Shake, or at least the public-forum friendly description of it. For the non-alcoholic category, the WLEI award belongs to yak butter tea from Tibet. The picture below actually makes it look appealing, but even if a person has read 3 Cups of Tea (and she has), this stuff is undrinkable. A truly harsh verdict coming from me.
As a kid, I bored easily with chewing food. I hated chewing (weird, right?), and sometimes I'd just give up mid-chew with food idling in my mouth. This laziness lead to some dinner-time show-downs and perhaps to my proclivity for choosing bread and vegetables over meat. Anyways, I always knew that I preferred almost anything in a liquid to almost anything in a solid.
I eventually outgrew my disgust for the work side of eating and whole-heartily embraced "real" food, but I still love liquids, a little too much. It's unsurprising, then, that I have tried quite a number of local drinks - from brews to salty yogurt to brown rice green tea white mustache sensha (yes, all 1 drink there) - many of which were delicious and some of which might actually bring a dead bird back to life.
There are two distinct winners in the "Worst Liquid Ever Imbibed" categories. 1 alcoholic and 1 non. The winner for the alcoholic WLEI award is Shake-Shake from Zambia. Think of chunky milk that has been left out for a while to ferment then boxed up nicely to drink. That's Shake-Shake, or at least the public-forum friendly description of it. For the non-alcoholic category, the WLEI award belongs to yak butter tea from Tibet. The picture below actually makes it look appealing, but even if a person has read 3 Cups of Tea (and she has), this stuff is undrinkable. A truly harsh verdict coming from me.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Eclectic is a nice word.
So, way back when, once upon a time when I first started grad school, I was having a hard time finding part-time work. I went on a provost fellowship, but it was only for a year. There was no way that I was going to "just" study for the year. I knew that money would run out soon and very soon, and I didn't want to accrue debt in a career field known not to be so lucrative (ahem, not at all lucrative...).
Such a quagmire led to frantic days of searching for a grad-student friendly job. I arrived in my new town perhaps two weeks before classes started, and my roommate and I spent days scouring the local newspapers, monster.com, and every other available source for jobs and eating salads for dinner while sitting on the floor. It was the magical time we all love to reminisce about, except-not at all. I needed income to cover rent.
About this time, classes started. Fortunately, my program offered night classes only. This left some time to continue the hunt. I spent a week job hunting in the days and attending my first grad school classes at night. I drove six hours the first weekend to go to my good friend Jess's wedding in Georgia and drove back the same day. The following week, I found an advertisement in a student newspaper offering $200 per month to participants. I saw it as a boon. Two hundred would definitely help out. The catch? I'd be selling my plasma twice a week. I figured it couldn't be so terrible. I'd faithfully given blood approximately every three months since I'd turned seventeen with a few lapses, altruist that I fashioned myself. So, by my estimation, giving plasma for money would be about the same deal. Big needle prick, some light-headedness followed by a need to prop my feet up, a good 20 minutes, and then it would all be over with juice to celebrate.
The first time I "donated" plasma was almost o.k. It was definitely worse than giving blood. Far worse. Giving blood only requires removing something from your body. Giving plasma requires donating your blood, waiting for the machine to spin off the plasma, and receiving your blood sans plasma but with fluids -cold fluids - back into your veins. Not comfortable, not fun, and not quick. In addition, before this enjoyable process gets started, a donor has to go through about 3 hours of paperwork and tests, and I'm not exaggerating. The first time through the plasma donation process, I didn't get sick, and I didn't die. I did have some difficulty driving myself home. But, in the end, besides the discomfort, it seemed like an o.k. way to make a few bucks until I found something a bit more standard.
About a week later, I returned to donate more plasma, hoping the second attempt would go more smoothly and steal fewer hours from my day. I arrived early in the morning to a super-air-conditioned room. I had awoken approximately one hour before, and I wasn't completely warmed up for the day. The nurse had to check my pulse twice that morning. It was too low the first time for donation. I offered to run a few laps around outside. Once the pulse passed the check, I moved on to the waiting room where I saw one wiry man I had encountered on my first day there. I noticed he had nice veins.
Another nurse led me to my chair and checked my arms. She poked me with the needle, and I nearly came off the chair. I'm a champion blood donor, or so I like to think, but something here was wrong. She inquired, "Does it hurt, or is it the idea of it?" It certainly wasn't the idea of anything causing pain. It hurt more than any needle stick I've had, and she decided to re-position the needle just by wiggling it around inside my arm, eliciting more groans and teeth gritting from me. At this point, she was probably thinking that I was the biggest pansy she's seen in a while, and I was wondering why she couldn't find a vein. The morning progressed without getting much better. The donation was taking forever, and the nurse kept returning to my side, frowning, and sighing about how my blood had stopped flowing. My body seemed to know what was best at this point. The nurse, on the other hand... The situation was resolved when the nurse returned and offered to stick my other arm, at which point I said no and asked to leave. Her concern was, "But this bowl of blood. We've got to get this blood back in you." No thanks, lady. Just flush it and get me out of here. I was allowed to leave.
All week long, the bruise on my arm continued to grow. Over the next few weeks, it morphed through several of ROY.G.BIV's letters. I'm not entirely convinced that nurse actually got the needle into the right place. In the end, I gave up on the easy money and found a job as a supervisor at a C-store on campus (think, gas station snacks).
The lesson in it all, for me, was that what comes freely ought to be given freely. We don't choose to be born, to have blood coursing through our veins. We don't achieve it. And so, I shouldn't sell it. Good to know, especially on nights like tonight when I start to think creatively about income-generation.
Such a quagmire led to frantic days of searching for a grad-student friendly job. I arrived in my new town perhaps two weeks before classes started, and my roommate and I spent days scouring the local newspapers, monster.com, and every other available source for jobs and eating salads for dinner while sitting on the floor. It was the magical time we all love to reminisce about, except-not at all. I needed income to cover rent.
About this time, classes started. Fortunately, my program offered night classes only. This left some time to continue the hunt. I spent a week job hunting in the days and attending my first grad school classes at night. I drove six hours the first weekend to go to my good friend Jess's wedding in Georgia and drove back the same day. The following week, I found an advertisement in a student newspaper offering $200 per month to participants. I saw it as a boon. Two hundred would definitely help out. The catch? I'd be selling my plasma twice a week. I figured it couldn't be so terrible. I'd faithfully given blood approximately every three months since I'd turned seventeen with a few lapses, altruist that I fashioned myself. So, by my estimation, giving plasma for money would be about the same deal. Big needle prick, some light-headedness followed by a need to prop my feet up, a good 20 minutes, and then it would all be over with juice to celebrate.
The first time I "donated" plasma was almost o.k. It was definitely worse than giving blood. Far worse. Giving blood only requires removing something from your body. Giving plasma requires donating your blood, waiting for the machine to spin off the plasma, and receiving your blood sans plasma but with fluids -cold fluids - back into your veins. Not comfortable, not fun, and not quick. In addition, before this enjoyable process gets started, a donor has to go through about 3 hours of paperwork and tests, and I'm not exaggerating. The first time through the plasma donation process, I didn't get sick, and I didn't die. I did have some difficulty driving myself home. But, in the end, besides the discomfort, it seemed like an o.k. way to make a few bucks until I found something a bit more standard.
About a week later, I returned to donate more plasma, hoping the second attempt would go more smoothly and steal fewer hours from my day. I arrived early in the morning to a super-air-conditioned room. I had awoken approximately one hour before, and I wasn't completely warmed up for the day. The nurse had to check my pulse twice that morning. It was too low the first time for donation. I offered to run a few laps around outside. Once the pulse passed the check, I moved on to the waiting room where I saw one wiry man I had encountered on my first day there. I noticed he had nice veins.
Another nurse led me to my chair and checked my arms. She poked me with the needle, and I nearly came off the chair. I'm a champion blood donor, or so I like to think, but something here was wrong. She inquired, "Does it hurt, or is it the idea of it?" It certainly wasn't the idea of anything causing pain. It hurt more than any needle stick I've had, and she decided to re-position the needle just by wiggling it around inside my arm, eliciting more groans and teeth gritting from me. At this point, she was probably thinking that I was the biggest pansy she's seen in a while, and I was wondering why she couldn't find a vein. The morning progressed without getting much better. The donation was taking forever, and the nurse kept returning to my side, frowning, and sighing about how my blood had stopped flowing. My body seemed to know what was best at this point. The nurse, on the other hand... The situation was resolved when the nurse returned and offered to stick my other arm, at which point I said no and asked to leave. Her concern was, "But this bowl of blood. We've got to get this blood back in you." No thanks, lady. Just flush it and get me out of here. I was allowed to leave.
All week long, the bruise on my arm continued to grow. Over the next few weeks, it morphed through several of ROY.G.BIV's letters. I'm not entirely convinced that nurse actually got the needle into the right place. In the end, I gave up on the easy money and found a job as a supervisor at a C-store on campus (think, gas station snacks).
The lesson in it all, for me, was that what comes freely ought to be given freely. We don't choose to be born, to have blood coursing through our veins. We don't achieve it. And so, I shouldn't sell it. Good to know, especially on nights like tonight when I start to think creatively about income-generation.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Pick your habits carefully. They stick.
Bumming around the world as a professional English teacher takes it's toll on a person, mind, body, and soul. Along the way, we pick up languages and customs, bouts of food poisoning, and friends. I've also discovered that I've picked up more than a few bad, or simply odd, habits. The habits I've developed are purely of my own device; I wouldn't attribute these to culture's influence, necessarily. They're more the products of circumstance, necessity, and lack of options. Here they are, to the extent that I can recall:
China
1. stir fry
2. laundry on the line
3. not exercising as often
4. walking & busing
5. 2 hour lunches
6. sharing food at meals
7. watching t.v. shows online
8. tea
9. taking my time at the grocery store
10. limited AC
Zambia
11. leaving food out and open
12. salt and vinegar chips
13. eating with hands
14. walking
15. "iwe"
16. not leaving the house after dark
17. cokes with sugar
18. always being on the look-out for pick-pockets
19. bringing food to share at work
20. solitaire on my iPod
China
1. stir fry
2. laundry on the line
3. not exercising as often
4. walking & busing
5. 2 hour lunches
6. sharing food at meals
7. watching t.v. shows online
8. tea
9. taking my time at the grocery store
10. limited AC
Zambia
11. leaving food out and open
12. salt and vinegar chips
13. eating with hands
14. walking
15. "iwe"
16. not leaving the house after dark
17. cokes with sugar
18. always being on the look-out for pick-pockets
19. bringing food to share at work
20. solitaire on my iPod
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The First 7 Months
I've been back in the U.S. for about 7.5 months now. I've already finished one contract and will start the second in one week. It keeps getting harder to be reflective, and without that reflection, I feel like I'm not actually living. True introvert. I think I'm at that awkward stage of transition, the one right before things start to get easier. I do want life in the U.S. to feel comfortable again, but I'm equally afraid of losing the way of life I had to adapt to over the last three years.
Self-definition (see above example) is one trait of "life in the U.S." that stands out more than ever, and it's a trap that I quickly find myself falling into. On almost any day that I interact with people who speak English, I hear some version of this sentence: "I'm a _____________, so ________." Why is it that we feel the need to so clearly state where we stand and what we think and who we are at all times? Whatever happened to letting people figure it all out as they go, even if they should get it wrong? This need to self-define almost becomes a game. I have to state what I am before anyone else in the room should say the exact same thing about him/herself. Once it's out there, and someone says, "I'm a perfectionist, so these uneven margins really grind my gears*," all other comment is usurped. There's infinite pressure not to say, "Oh yeah? I'm a perfectionist too! That's so neat. We're so much alike." In this economy of selling oneself at all times to anyone, it's sacriledge to claim a similarity with someone if it's already been used as that person's identity. We're all individuals, so we can't possibly have the same idiosyncracies. And this is where it all gets tricky. In order to avoid looking contrived, or worse, like a follower, I must come up with my self-definition first, before anyone else has laid claim to it. I'm not sure when all this competition in the realm of self-identity surfaced, but I've noticed it in doses I've never experienced before.
Perhaps we need to constantly define ourselves for those around us because we live such separated lives here. The extreme "my time-my life" individualism of the U.S. strikes me as odd after spending time in significantly more collectivist societies. Although I always remained an outsider in those places, I could observe daily the extent to which social groups, family groups, community groups, and work groups collaborated and shared more than just the narrowly defined tasks that brought them together. As an outsider, I had the liberty not to be bound by such obligations, and perhaps I look back on it fondly since I had no real responsibility within that system. However, I miss it. I miss seeing people check with others first before making their plans. I miss the concept of always having more space at the table, more room for others. I miss the physical proximity of squeezing into crowded areas and the normalcy of seeing coworkers' laundry on the line.
Isolation becomes so much simpler when the most common mechanism for crossing streets, states, and statuses is a car. I hop in mine, and it's just me. I admit that I love the isolation of driving. I hate the waste of space and resources. I am definitely torn on this point, but at least driving myself everywhere still feels odd. I hope it never becomes my norm, even if it is my habit out of necessity.
The anthropologists task lies in the familiar quote: "making the familiar strange and the strange, familiar." I think I've lived this even if I haven't come back with anything resembling ethnography. For me, the exercise isn't one of purely academic inquiry. There's something to learn when you cast off the "norm" and borrow another's way of life. The greatest loss would be to forget the strangeness that, for a while, became familiar.
*clever phrase credit - S. Dutt
Self-definition (see above example) is one trait of "life in the U.S." that stands out more than ever, and it's a trap that I quickly find myself falling into. On almost any day that I interact with people who speak English, I hear some version of this sentence: "I'm a _____________, so ________." Why is it that we feel the need to so clearly state where we stand and what we think and who we are at all times? Whatever happened to letting people figure it all out as they go, even if they should get it wrong? This need to self-define almost becomes a game. I have to state what I am before anyone else in the room should say the exact same thing about him/herself. Once it's out there, and someone says, "I'm a perfectionist, so these uneven margins really grind my gears*," all other comment is usurped. There's infinite pressure not to say, "Oh yeah? I'm a perfectionist too! That's so neat. We're so much alike." In this economy of selling oneself at all times to anyone, it's sacriledge to claim a similarity with someone if it's already been used as that person's identity. We're all individuals, so we can't possibly have the same idiosyncracies. And this is where it all gets tricky. In order to avoid looking contrived, or worse, like a follower, I must come up with my self-definition first, before anyone else has laid claim to it. I'm not sure when all this competition in the realm of self-identity surfaced, but I've noticed it in doses I've never experienced before.
Perhaps we need to constantly define ourselves for those around us because we live such separated lives here. The extreme "my time-my life" individualism of the U.S. strikes me as odd after spending time in significantly more collectivist societies. Although I always remained an outsider in those places, I could observe daily the extent to which social groups, family groups, community groups, and work groups collaborated and shared more than just the narrowly defined tasks that brought them together. As an outsider, I had the liberty not to be bound by such obligations, and perhaps I look back on it fondly since I had no real responsibility within that system. However, I miss it. I miss seeing people check with others first before making their plans. I miss the concept of always having more space at the table, more room for others. I miss the physical proximity of squeezing into crowded areas and the normalcy of seeing coworkers' laundry on the line.
Isolation becomes so much simpler when the most common mechanism for crossing streets, states, and statuses is a car. I hop in mine, and it's just me. I admit that I love the isolation of driving. I hate the waste of space and resources. I am definitely torn on this point, but at least driving myself everywhere still feels odd. I hope it never becomes my norm, even if it is my habit out of necessity.
The anthropologists task lies in the familiar quote: "making the familiar strange and the strange, familiar." I think I've lived this even if I haven't come back with anything resembling ethnography. For me, the exercise isn't one of purely academic inquiry. There's something to learn when you cast off the "norm" and borrow another's way of life. The greatest loss would be to forget the strangeness that, for a while, became familiar.
*clever phrase credit - S. Dutt
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