7 December 2012

This is my second post in less than a month--I don't think I have been on such a roll since 2010. Maybe I am starting to earn and deserve my readership.

My stay-cation was good. I lodged one application to a Spanish graduate program, in Barcelona. As for the rest that I might apply to for now all I can do is prepare and wait. In Spain it is not uncommon for universities to do the same in March or April. One does not open until May. Talk about laid-back.

I have had the privilege of having a number of dear family and friends look over my materials and give me feedback. Some of the most valuable feedback I got was from a friend in Israel--she went through the whole essay I wrote for the school in Barcelona and cut out every instance of "I", "me" and "my" she possibly could--and there were quite a few. The end product was more meaningful, striking and to the point. Makes me shudder to think about going back and reading some of my previous blog entries.

In that vein, I have a friend, Sahar, who has been kind enough to lend me the netbook I am tapping out this entry on, who has a blog, saharsblog.wordpress.com. The title is in effect ironic, because the blog is about everything but Sahar herself--and that tells you a whole lot about her. She asks plainly on her blog's "About" page: "Let me start off by say that Sahar’s Blog is definitely NOT a day-to-day diary description of what I am up to – not only it might bore you to death, but what’s the point of everyone knowing what I am up to?"

It's a good question for anyone to ask. I write "Hacer el camino al andar" to keep my friends and family posted on what I'm doing on this side of the world, but wouldn't you come to know more about me, plus some other interesting and useful stuff too, if I used this blog to show you not so much the filter itself as the world through it?

With that I'll share with you another fruit of the labor I put in during my stay-cation: thefaithfultranslator.wordpress.com

The heart of it is a blog about translation issues. My intention is that the top row of links might become part of a web presence as a freelance translator; and the bottom row of links, when the time to professionalize comes, might be split off into a different forum. I began it before these reflections on ego had taken root in my head, so I'm still working on purging it of self and keeping the focus on translation. Any and all feedback is appreciated. I don't know what will become of this blog, but the title itself leaves the door wide open. It comes from this poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado:

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.

Soon I'll post a translation on my translation blog :)

18 November 2012

Let me apologize for the long delay.

Things are going well. My hare-brained (harebrained?) scheme to study translation in Spain and library science in Canada is actually coming together, despite months of feeling anxious that things wouldn't work out--and now I feel that whatever happens, I'll be satisfied, but the worst thing is to have a dream and not try to find the way to achieve it. Already, I know that I've learned invaluable things through the mere act of making the effort, such as: there are obstacles in your path that someone or something else puts there, and then there are obstacles in your path that you yourself put there (and can do something about), and there are obstacles that aren't real and exist only in your imagination.

And that it never hurts to ask a question.

And that some of the things left-field people say are actually right. Who would have known it?

I'm taking a few days off work just to have a break from the office and catch up on some personal projects, including:

Graduate school applications. Of course. This is a huge amount of work and I'm a slowpoke, but I'm getting there. An advisor at UWM (God bless her soul for helping me go somewhere else) told me to look at as many schools as possible. It's an exhaustive, exhaustive exercise, but in the process of asking questions and getting answers (often more promising than I expected), viable candidates are shaping up fairly quickly. A lot of things will become clearer in January. Besides that, I'm:

Writing: I hardly ever make time for this. Not long ago I issued a general appeal to all Baha'i World Centre writers to let me know who they are and what they write. In a couple of weeks I'm having a poetry-prose reading at my house and so I ought to have something to share. I've looked through some old poems and other writing and think I can do better. A lot of it feels immature. I'm going to work on writing something more sophisticated and if it works out I'll post it here.

Translating: A couple of months ago I had the idea to join the fascinating conversation online of translation bloggers and their blogs. I actually wrote down a number of themes and drafted about seven entries and then my laptop died. So, starting over. I'm also thinking of looking for a little freelance work, anything to start to understand how the field works and help me a little along the way financially.

Calligraphing: I don't know if I've ever written about this, but having visited all the Holy Places, whose walls are decorated with calligraphy and other items, a number of times, having visited the International Archives Building which displays some of the original Baha'i writings, rendered in calligraphy, having volunteered in the Conservation office for a year, and having had friends who are expert calligraphers too (one of my most prolific friends is a descendant of Mishkin-Qalam, a famous early Baha'i and calligapher whose best known work appears at the bottom of the page) I've been inspired to do some of this myself. It seems that most people love to have a piece of artwork that says something that has meaning to them, so I can't post any good examples of calligraphy I've already done, having given the good pieces away, but I intend to start taking pictures of things before I give them away, for the record, and the blog.

I can, however, share with you a picture I took yesterday around Stella Maris monastery and cathedral, a Catholic pilgrimage site, yesterday (I am sorry, I tried to upload a few more pictures but it took forever, then the mechanism broke. I am thinking of starting an Instagram account since I am pleased this company shares my love of square-shaped images [it only allows square-shaped images] and then I should be able to share a lot more pictures):

24 August

Apparently my blog has a small following in Italy, Japan and Latvia. Hello, foreign friends!

Today I went with a few friends to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in the new city of Jerusalem. I haven't been to the holocaust museum in D.C. to compare but those who have tell me that the American museum is far more focused on the actions of the Allied Forces whereas the one in Israel primarily tells the stories of Jewish communities, families and individuals and many non-Jews who risked their lives to save the Jews.

Yad Vashem is a huge complex with a number of outdoor memorials, set in gardens (and including a haunting memorial to the 1.5 million children who died in the holocaust - you walk inside and you're surrounded by darkness, a few candles and refracted glass that makes the candles appear to multiply). The main attraction is a museum shaped like a very long prism, set into a mountain with either end sticking out (to symbolize the moral darkness of the holocaust era). At the "beginning" end the prism is intact but at the "ending" end it splits into two. It's a really unique design feature, especially since both ends of the prism are off the ground. I think the split end is meant to symbolize the regeneration of the Jewish people.

Inside the prism is a zigzag path through several exhibits with tons of written information in chronological order. This way you can't skip around and you're forced to do what you probably wanted to do anyway, which is piece together the events as they happened. There's such information overload that by the time you reach the exhibits about the horrors of extermination campaigns and the brave efforts to save individual Jews or whole Jewish communities or populations within countries, which start coming about halfway through, you're fairly dizzy. I think if I were to go again I'd start halfway through...though I don't know if I would go back. I felt sick all day. Yet, at the same time I felt a certain distance from the events depicted. It is hard to imagine such a thing happening in the world today. Yet such horrible things do happen although on a smaller and less noticeable scale. I wonder how much time it will take for our consciousness as a race to be elevated to the point that such acts, whether on a small or grand scale, become totally unthinkable.

After leaving Jerusalem we went to Max Brenner outside of Tel Aviv. I thought it was weird that we planned to go to such a happy place after the holocaust museum (I didn't write up the itinerary) but I really appreciated it after feeling sick all day. It's a chocolate-themed chain restaurant with only a few branches in different countries around the world, and I think I know why it's popular in Israel--the country not being famous for its excellent chocolate, the stuff found here is generally low-quality and much too sweet. I had the banana split waffles with whipped cream, caramelized bananas, ice cream, a side of chocolate-covered crunchy things and another side of liquid chocolate to pour on top. I ended up wishing I were a bigger fan of chocolate (and giving half my plate to a bigger chocolate fan than I) but I hugely appreciated the presentation. Every dish was a work of art. If I were to open a chocolate-themed restaurant, or any restaurant (or do anything, really), I'd borrow its aesthetic.

9 March

It makes me laugh to see in my previous post that I thought then I was just under the four month mark...because now I am pretty sure I am just under the actual four month mark. So, naturally it feels like no time has passed at all. I was intending to leave in early June but since the best time to visit Jaime in Duluth is at the beginning of July, it seems to make the most sense to leave at the end of June, probably the 30th--that's a full 33 months anyway, which is the complete balance of what I promised (I remember that I arrived in Israeli on the 25th of September and started serving in my office on the 30th of September 2009).

I am sad to report I am finding it extraordinarily cold outside, and I bundle up every time I step outside, yet I am always amazed to see that these torturous temperatures are always somewhere in the 50's and 60's. I do not know how I will survive come fall.

I had my pilgrimage at the end of February, beginning of March. My whole occupation centers on bringing pilgrims to the Holy Land, and I know that pilgrimage is a source of great joy and inspiration for many people, yet I had a hard time enjoying it myself. One of my friends who was to have his pilgrimage at the same time as me ended up cancelling it altogether shortly beforehand and I couldn't really understand why at the time, but now I can. I think we are both the sort of person that would rather do meaningful work than just go on vacation. A pilgrimage does not equate with a vacation, it is not all sightseeing and self-indulgence but something spiritual, but there are parallels. You can't work, for example, and you get spoiled with people working for you while you...let them, and it is all entirely focused on the self. It's a reflection time. Actually, that part was quite intense. I tried to do as much reading and reflection as possible and I felt like that was a big responsibility (since I practically had people waiting on me to allow me to do this). I have to admit, though, that early on I thought of calling the whole thing off myself and going back to work. It was a bit harder for me to enjoy because I live here and I've seen and done everything, though not all at once until now, and because I was alone and I think it's more meaningful if you have family members with you. Or at least friends. Of course, I made friends on pilgrimage but I was sort of disappointed at the quality of the conversations I had with them. I don't quite know how to explain or justify that without being snobbish (or maybe there's no way because I'm being snobbish). But it seems like the quality of the conversations that I have with other staff generally far exceeds the quality of the conversations that I had with my fellow pilgrims. It could be that my expectations were too high. I expected that we would talk about matters of spiritual import on our pilgrimage but it seemed all they wanted to talk about were movies and popular fiction novels and linguistic idiosyncrasies and even politics. My patience was quite tried to hear some of my American compatriots lament things like smaller portion sizes at restaurants and the difficulty of finding peanut butter. I tried to connect with people, but ultimately it was my responsibility to try to connect my soul to God, so I tried to focus my energies on that.

In the middle of my pilgrimage began the yearly Baha'i fasting period, which is 19 days (today is day eight) of abstaining from eating and drinking during daylight hours (obviously this is a symbol of the spiritual component...like pilgrimage, fasting is meant to be a time of reflection, maybe a sort of spring cleaning of the mind). Somehow it is extraordinarily easy this year. I don't miss food, and I like the feeling of a little hunger, which feels like resetting my connection to internal rather than external hunger cues, which is good, because I feel that I overeat a bit ordinarily. I do miss water, but even that is a good thing since I drink water to the point of feeling bloated sometimes (the result of having a desk job and being constantly exhorted to drink more water). All in all it does feel like an external recalibration. With that being easy, I can try harder with the inner recalibration.

In light of the fast I haven't been doing yoga but I expect to get back into it at the end of March. If I maintain my expected schedule I'll be doing yoga right up until almost the end of June and that way, hopefully, I'll learn enough that I'll be able to sustain a yoga practice without a teacher (good, because lessons are expensive) or maybe with infrequent instruction when I get back. I expect graduate school to be stressful and so I am trying to line up my coping mechanisms now.

Speaking of graduate school, I've been told that I've been admitted to the Spanish translation program and to the library science program. Now all I'm waiting on is the graduate school, so I can't see why I wouldn't be as good as in. The fall timetable gets posted at the end of this month and I think registration begins sometime in April. Oh, and I haven't heard anything regarding my FAFSA yet and I don't quite know how long that takes. Now I'm a bit anxious because no news either means it's still being processed or something went wrong. I know it will be intense but I'm really looking forward to more higher education, particularly because this time my aspirations are much clearer.

10 February

Obviously, I'm back in Israel now. It hasn't changed much, except for the growing prominence of the threat of war between Israel and Iran. On one hand, it's a scary thought (and I seriously doubt that the Iranian government will make its decisions based on practical matters rather than ideology, so I don't know how optimistic I feel about the sanctions that are an effort to get Iran to halt its nuclear development program)...and on the other, I remember the threat of Iran being a big deal when I first flew into Israel in September 2009 (the same day, the Ahmadinejad was giving a speech at the United Nations and several nations walked out during his talk). This country has experienced relative calm for nearly three years. Considering there was a significant conflict in 2008-2009 (Gaza) and another in 2006 (Lebanon) and I'm not sure when the one before that was (the one I hear about most aside from those two is the Persian Gulf War in the early 90's), it's been an unusually long time since a conflict erupted. But it's probably not good to think then that a conflict must be overdue. Warfare isn't overdue anywhere.

I keep thinking I'm going to have a hard time getting people to understand that I lived in Israel for three years yet am not pro-Israel, pro-Palestine (let's face it, at this point in history they both have a good argument), Jewish OR Christian. I have yet to see which preconception will be the most common/hardest to disspell.

For four weeks I've been taking Iyengar yoga classes at a local studio twice a week. I think it's the best decision I've made here. Finally I'm meeting some locals and seeing what Israelis outside of the service professions are really like (granted, it can't be said it's not a very specific subset of Israelis...the ones who do yoga). My goodness, they're sweet. They'll do anything to help you. The classes are taught in Hebrew and some of them go out of their way to translate for me and help me. There is a very sweet Russian lady I see often named Nina who says she thinks I've been doing yoga longer than I have because I'm so flexible. I tried to tell her I was born that way. (It's definitely an asset.) In a way it's a chance to escape into a wider world and it's teaching me how to turn off my mind sometimes and relax. Since it's a style that's so focused on precision it makes me much more conscious of how I sit at work and walk and carry myself. But most of all it helps me to feel that I'm really living in a foreign country and this is real life, not some weird suspension of time in a bubble. I wish I had been willing to make such an investment sooner, but what can I do but relish it now?

As I hoped, I am gradually picking up more and more Hebrew and getting more and more courageous about using it...even if much of my vocabulary is anatomical and directional (can't think why).

Now that I'm likely under the four month mark (depending on when I choose to leave...I'm thinking early June) I'm beginning to think seriously about the process of relocating. I have a few possessions to sell, mostly books and art supplies, not many. I have a lot of heavy books to ship back (these are what I have accumulated the most of), but I get a free 40 kilo allowance and I think that should take care of that (and if needed I can always pay for more). And that's that. Just like that I'll wrap up my life here and it will be like I was never here except for my initials on a few logs in the pilgrimage database and a few paintings I may as well leave behind because I don't like them that much and they may as well spruce up a flat here like so many found objects. I'll take a lot more back with me from this place than it's going to end up with from me. I'm pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

The biggest issue regarding my departure on my mind is what traveling I'll do on the way back. I couldn't not go visit Jaime in Superior for a week or two since we've had the chance to spend so very little time together in the past three years (really, in all our lives). That's decided...I just have to plan it.

As long as I'll be crossing half the world, I might do well to think of it as my chance to see a little more of the world (though I definitely appreciate how much I've been able to see...I've been all over Israel [I might even go to Jerusalem for a third time next Saturday], and I've spent substantial time in two very different, fascinating European countries, plus I got to have a good visit home). Of course, I am also trying to bear in mind the fact that grad school is in no way cheap even when the goal is to earn only one master's degree, and I hope to study abroad in that period (and now that I have friends all over the world, that study abroad period could easily encapsulate more travel within itself [how much more travelling do I need to do?]. Sometimes I have to step back and remember that I've been very lucky).

In any case, the traveling I've done from here has always been with the goal of being with family or friends...honestly, I've done enough sightseeing that I'm not interested in it for its own sake (if anyone really is). So, if I don't see France or Italy or Greece or Turkey or God knows where, just to see them, I'm okay with that. If you have any thoughts on what you would do or what you think I should do, I'm glad to hear them.

And speaking of grad school...it would seem I'm as good as accepted into my desired programs. I think I must know for sure within the next six weeks because I believe course selection occurs in April but I would think I should know the final decision by the end of this month. I'm starting to get nervous about the practical reality of how it's going to be. It really sounds like you don't get a moment to yourself and I have to say I rapidly adjusted, quite happily, to not having any homework. But I'm really excited to have found a coordinated degree program that seems to suit my interests and needs so hand-in-glovely and I think I'm ready to make the most of it. I've got to talk to more people, though, to brace myself for the real reality of it. (Is there any point in saying "real reality"? For emphasis I suppose. It feels right.) In any case I'm sure I can do it. I feel confident that I've found the right field(s) and that I have a good vision for the future. Though I never thought I would be saying that, I'm so glad I'll be going back to Milwaukee. I miss people.

3 January

It was brought to my attention that my previous combination of background and font colors were difficult to read, so I've changed them (to reflect what I wish it would do in Haifa more often--it looks grim, but remember that water from the sky is the water of life!). If anyone should find that my blog is still difficult to read I would appreciate feedback so I can remedy that.

Anyway, greetings from Norway!

I've been in Norway for a week and a half now--I had the chance to experience Christmas in a country with a sizeable Christmas-celebrating population for the first time in a few years. It was great to experience a traditional Norwegian Christmas, with real Norwegians as well as my American friends. It was different from the holiday at home in both outward and inward ways, outwardly with different traditions and foods and inwardly with a somewhat different approach--there are still get-togethers, and there are still presents, but I felt that more important to many celebrators were the presents, not the company. Norwegian society seems very materialistic--and when you have more money than you know what to do with, what else do you do, I suppose, besides become very materialistic? In some ways I wish the family had stayed in the motherland and just stuck it out (though realistically I probably wouldn't have existed had that happened). In other ways I think it's OK we immigrated.

I've been skiing twice and began to really like it halfway into the second trip. Unfortunately the weather is being non-cooperative so it looks unlikely that we'll be able to go again. But perhaps when I'm back in Wisconsin I'll rent some gear and make a trip to a ski hill.

It was quite a surprise to learn that all of Norway has a population of fewer than five million people (it's MUCH larger than Israel, and yet we have seven million people packed in) and the Oslo metropolitan area has about the same population of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. So it is not surprising that we were done with downtown attractions within a couple of days. It's pretty, and certainly old, and has some good museums and lovely streets (yes, even the dreaded "poor" side of downtown). We went to the Munch museum (anguished life, anguished work, remarkable by European standards, though the rest of the world could and, if you ask me, should scratch their heads a little) and the Viking ship museum (that was cool--we saw two nearly intact Viking ships retrieved from the burial mounds of very important people and the remnants of a third, plus various Viking artifacts, like sleds with intricate carvings).

Honestly I'm getting the most entertainment in my friends' little suburban apartment. We're doing lots of yoga (my friend is planning to become a yoga teacher). I take yoga classes at the World Centre taught my someone also aspiring to be a yoga teacher, but that's just for fun and I'd love to learn yoga on a more technical level. I contacted a yoga teacher in Israel and we'll see what happens with that. Lessons aren't cheap, but I'm not in Israel for much longer anyway. I've actually wanted to take lessons with this school of yoga (Iyengar, which is more concerned with doing the poses right, with high precision, than with doing them fast, as in many of the other types of yoga that have become popular in the West) for some time now, but I've shied away from their expensiveness. But in my last few months, why not? This trip is already much cheaper than I'd budgeted for it to be. I guess that's because I was budgeting as though I'd have to pay for accommodations (I don't know why I did that) and meals out (Norwegians don't eat out much, unless they're wealthy, because it's really expensive).

We're also cooking plenty of food (all kinds of sweet treats for the holiday season plus things like healthy lentil soup and reindeer meat stew--on spaetzle--that was amazing, by the way, and I could hardly get to sleep that night because I was so full of calories). Norwegians love fish, but my friends are (a) vegetarian or (b) not a fan, so I've only had a little of the stuff. Fish gets put into everything. There's fish au gratin, fish cordon bleu, fish cakes, fish balls...you name it. I have a particular liking for fish cakes. The trip is also motivating me to get back into the habit of cooking, which I had put on hiatus for a while.

The trip has been the source of a few other motivators as well. My friends have been so generous to me that it makes me want to spread the love and be more generous in my dealings with people. I might be hoping to go to grad school, but that doesn't mean I have to hoard money and be stingy. Even if I'm in a rough spot I'm still a human being living a life. At the same time I find myself wanting to cut every shred of materialism from my life. I think you can have plenty of nice things and not be materialistic. But when wants turn into perceived needs and the prospect of loss is too difficult, that's materialism to me. Fortunately, I don't think I'm very materialistic to begin with. Though that's debatable. I really want, for example, more higher education and I don't know what I'd do without it. But I guess that doesn't really count. What I really want is the education itself, not the degree.

Finally the trip is making me want to learn more about Israeli culture and Hebrew. Sure, it's not a "useful" language (unless you're Jewish or interested in reading the bible in Hebrew, and I am neither). But I'll have lived in this crazy country for nearly three years and I hope to take advantage of my last opportunities to make the most of living abroad. I might prefer a country with less of a political charge, with sides and subdivisions all around, and I might prefer a language not written in a different alphabet, with half the letters missing, and backwards too (AND I might prefer to generally be confronted with ONE language, not several)...but this is the country that I live in.

Last thing--the trip has been refreshing and just what I needed to keep myself going.