I forgot anyhow

Well, 'tis the season to sit at home drinking Dark and Stormies (Stormys? I don't know.) and reflecting upon the past year.

I saw some interesting things, was flummoxed by many others, went through several jobs, and all in all, the year never turned out how I'd hoped.

I find however, that the strange turns my life has taken have been nothing but good - although it can be hard to see. My husband is still not in the country due to an oversight by USCIS and the apparent ineptitude by their workers to file things in files as opposed to wherever they lost mine.

My year was based on that hope of seeing him again - of being able to show him my life, friends, and family here.

However as he is still not here, I found myself aiding a friend in a bad situation and helping with his small children. While the situation still has not improved on the emotional end as I hoped it might, I find that I find our new "chosen family" as I call it, has made my life both interesting and fulfilled. I am constantly challenged in ways I never thought I would be at this point in my life, and while many of my friends are confused by my decision to move in with children who are not mine, I find this to be the best decision I have made since college. I am grateful for a supporting husband, who believes I am not only doing the right thing, so who agreed for me to move in in the first place and wants to join me here- in this home, with these children.

I thought for sure that this year I would find that job that would make me happy. Who knew that it would be the year where I found that there were more important things to do that. Mind you, I don't have a bad job - if you like talking to the Quebecois all day, every day. But the ones I took in between to make ends meet were frustrating and most of what I learned was bitter.

At this point in my life, I had expected to be living overseas, working at an NGO, independent, with no real personal responsibilities. I find myself as a secondary caregiver and a wife with my husband a continent away, and some days - like today - I wonder how I got here.

I suppose, in summary, and with a mind full of random thoughts, bad grammar, and too tired to think, that I have had a strange and hard year. But I could not have wished for a better ending.

And tomorrow, the Dark and Stormies will be put away, for it will be a good day.

Well look what I found

Goodness. My old blog. Lost amongst the myriad of links cluttering my bookmarks, utterly abandoned when I left the country all those years ago. I wrote very few posts here, but I hope to change that. Which, as any reader at will see, is what I have written many, many times in the, what, 7 posts here?

In any case. I am at the point in my life where I would like to begin writing again. Because it was a fun creative outlet and frankly, I feel like such a drone right now I need this outlet more than anything.

So while circumstances today lead me to not have the time to write (Superbowl Sunday my friends, I must go watch the game) I shall not forget it this time.

Quran

So, after living in a muslim country for the last yeat now, I found this rather interesting.

Aziz writes:

The US military has officially apologized for the actions of a sergeant who used the Qur'an for target practice.

The incident was earlier strongly condemned by al-Hashemi and the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents many of Iraq's mosques."This heinous crime shows the hatred that the leaders and the members of the occupying force have against the Quran and the [Muslim] people," it said.It added that it held both the US military and Iraqi government responsible for the incident.The US army earlier said the staff sergeant, who fired bullets at the Quran and wrote graffiti inside it, had already been removed from Iraq and was to be disciplined.

A heinous crime? good grief. Personally I think that it's literally impossible to demean the Qur'an - the most anyone can do is destroy a copy, but that's an impotent gesture indeed. What need have we of apologies such as these? Why should the empty symbolism of an unbeliever concern us? If anything is an insult to the Qur'an, it's this compulsive obsession with how the exterior of the physical book is treated rather than what's inside.

I rather like that last line there. I believe that religious books in general ought to be treated with respect, out of deference for others even if it is not in accord with your personal beliefs. But at the same time, people desecrate the Bible as well. Both the litteral book and the interior meanings.

I was informed the other day by a good Christian friend here that it was sinful for a man to have long hair as it showed they were homosexuals. Not the first time I have heard this, but it should hardly be important in my not quite so humble opinion. The so called problems I see debated the most within the Christian Church are, for the most part, not things I believe that are important in the slightest. Within uber conservative circles (where I happen to have some friends) the debates concerning what people are and are not allowed to do are staggerly out of snyc with the Bible's message of love and respect (which I believe goes hand in hand with tolerance).

With Islam, I have seen here many veiled women, but all of them choose to veil themselves. I believe. This is not to say there is no pressure to do so from their families or culture (for instance the girls from Mauritania, where it is enforced) as there are others from that culture here at all times and it is always possible that someone will call them on it or mention it to their family. But at the same time, the Islam I see here is very relaxed. The book is still holy, but thereis not as much stock held in the additional readings and translations made by others. Or, at least, not the ones that the rest of the mulsim world pays attention to. The Marabouts are a completely different story which I shan't go into. But the obsessiveness is not there in regards to veiling practices, who can touch the Quran, or who a myriad of other little things that you will find in say, Sauid Arabia or Iran.

More later. I need to stop procrastinating my papers. If I go at the same rate of posting, I'll be back in about a year.

Can love ever be unselfish? We are social creatures, and everyone has a desire for companionship. Because as each person feels the desire to be with another, that is being driven by the fact that they are afraid of being alone. I can understand preferring the company of one over another, and even the desire to spend all of one's time with one person, yet there is always that underlying aspect of simply needing companionship for oneself.

Where is the line drawn? How do you find the difference between a physical and emotional desire for companionship and actual love? Or is that all that love really is?

I went to my old home today for the first time in years. By "my old home", I mean the forest next to the apartments I grew up in. I walked through the old paths, and found that they were smaller than I recalled. The negative windchill today made me shorten my visit, but I walked all the way to my old elementary school, and stood about 300 ft away from my old apartment. When I landlord went to jail, the neighborhood (which was, I admit, rather bad) was turned into condominiums. There was a 'for sale' sign outside of our old palce, and I was really quite tempted to go and see if I could have a tour at some time. Another day perhaps....

I'm so glad that I went. I saw some familiar trees that I've missed. It sounds corny, but I loved those trees. The oddly bent ones; the old fallen tree that is now nearly gone. When I was a child it stood nearly 10 ft tall...My life has been hectic lately. I needed that walk; to see that place where I always felt at home.

Next time, I will go climb the mounds. A Native American tribe from the area made them in the shapes of various animals long before the area was ever settled. The Panther mound is my favorite, and always has been. It's so beautiful.

Going back there, it is painful to see where that b*astard chopped off one half of a drumlin and developed it, where the sides are being encroached upon by the businesses. It had been an oasis, a small forest in the midst of the city, but now it is nothing more than a pocket.

I had to watch a film yesterday.

I had to watch people being burned alive.

Their bodies were dragged through the streets, leaving ash marks as they went. A black, charring mockery of a human body, pulled along by human hands.

There were children there, watching and cheering with their parents as human beings screamed in agony and died.

How can people be taught this? How can anyone, man, woman or child, see that and support it? See that and participate in it? Even if it is only watching, they are participating with the crowd, because they are a part of that crowd.

When I close my eyes, I can see the image in my head. It won't go away.

This should never have happened. This should never happen again.

Yet, is this even possible? The never-changing nature of man says no, man will always be a cruel, brutal beast in his core; sinful and full of animonsity towards his fellow man.

But while I am a pessimist by nature, in some things, I am an optimist by choice. I feel that people are capable of change - though it may not be in one generation, or even in two. To change that dramatically, one needs to have the change echoed throughout a culture, and throughout the family unit. The family needs to teach, and the culture needs to reflect these teachings. A desire for violence, a thrist for the pain of others must no longer be tolerated. A person is free to choose their own actions, but a line must be more clearly drawn between freedom of personal choice and actions against humanity.

What kind of world allows this type of activity? Whether it be a country, a region, a group, or an individual, the more I study the world as it is now, the more unbearable it becomes.

We call this civilization? We call this progress? Progress according to whom? Civilization as opposed to what? Early times, where people killed and took over areas without a thought of the people? When people saw another person they did not know as an enemy because they belonged to another people, another country, another culture or followed a different set of ideals? People who would torture these enemies because they were enemies and that is what you did?

Where have we changed? Of yet, I see none. I see the dead men flashing through my head when I close my eyes. I want the image to leave, to stop haunting my peace.

But at the same time, I want it to never go away. Someone needs to remember it. Someone needs to work towards someday, never having to see it again.

Long Time No See....

Well, after a hectic summer of Ultimate Frisbee, working 40 hour weeks, one trip to Alaska to visit an Uncle who has Altzhiemers (before he forgot us, which he only did about half of the time) and meeting a lot of fun, wonderful people..........yeah, ok, I ignored this thing. Jeeze, I'm sorry.....

Anyhow, sitting at home all by myself with a torn shoulder muscle, typing slowly with my left hand, and wondering why all of my "friends" have not called me all weekend to see if I need any help with anything, I found this on a site of one of my friends and I liked it a lot. Enjoy.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -John Stuart Mill-

Looking at this post, it is obvious to me that painkillers are definately inhibiting my communications skills. The quote is still good though.