then i really would have to move to canada

We cannot, I repeat, CANNOT allow Mike Huckabee to become President. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, thereby proving that we must build a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico?

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Just when you thought the potential for insanity in the U.S. Presidency had been fully realized...

another way

I imagine that, for personal and professional reasons, I care more about what happens in Ecuador than do most of you. But if you like to hear about alternatives to the corporate, profit-driven, Global North-controlled story of "development" - or if you just like to hear stories about someone telling George Bush to stick it - you'll like this.

hopes and plans

Holiday greetings, dear friends. I hope that you were able to realize whatever you find most enjoyable about Christmas. Even (grudgingly) if what you enjoy most is fighting the crowds in the malls to exchange unwanted gifts today. To each their own.

I can honestly say that Christmas is my favorite holiday. Everything is closed and quiet, it's easy to believe that most people are cozy at home with their loved ones, candles shine in windows, and absolutely nothing is expected of me (aforementioned petsitting notwithstanding).

All that said, I think I will be glad for the new year. There is something unsettled within me now, a small, dark, echo-y place waiting for something to fill and brighten and warm it. This dark time of year feels a bit too encouraging to the hermit inside me, she who would have me stay home and read books and secretly hope for snowstorms to fall in the way of gatherings. These past few weeks have been full of excitement and uncertainty (job, music, coming visitors... hell, even the weather, with our every-other-day-blizzards). I've stayed up too late and consumed too much sugar. Routines have fallen by the wayside. It all combines to make me feel like hiding out and being rather passive toward life. Friends feel a bit too far away, exercise is a distant memory, and the spiritual ground beneath me seems as uneven and slippery as the frozen-slush-covered sidewalk outside my front door.

Of course we should not need such contrived starting lines as the beginning of a new year to motivate us toward that which we want or need to accomplish anyway. But simply because of scheduling, only the new year will bring the opportunities around which I am now trying to stretch my resolve, so it's as good a starting point as any. In the meantime, I look forward to the next few days of reflection on that which has been in this year and that which I hope will be in the next. More importantly, on who I have been and who I hope to be.

In the Jewish High Holy Days service we say: "on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed..." and though it feels kind of sacreligious to say this (as if it wasn't enough to call Christmas my favorite holiday), it is really now that I feel a certain sacredness in the days and a need for reflection, much more than I did in October. In these days of darkness between the solstice and the new year it feels appropriate to take a good look in the mirror and make some decisions. My life is too full of goodness to take one bit of it for granted. I will be more intentional. I will follow through. I will listen more and better. I will trust in (hopefully benevolent) fate for many things, but I will not be passive about who I am in the world.

I wonder if any of this makes sense to anyone but me. Maybe it sounds like I'm trying too hard to be poetic... it's hard to distill things that feel both really personal and really huge into plain old words. But for some reason it feels important to write these things here. It feels honest, and that's the only real place to start.

Happy Holidays.

and in full recognition of my heritage, i might even go out for chinese food tonight

There's something about the pragmatism and self-reliance of New Zealanders that we Americans just don't have. I can say for sure that precious few parents of my study abroad students would possibly have this reaction to this situation. (The fact that there was a shark attack in the Galapagos is also, um, interesting, but I can only hope that our study abroad parents don't have the same Google News alerts that I do.)

On an entirely different note, I must say that I am currently experiencing a level of popularity previously unimagined. Have I discovered the meaning of life, you ask? Or the secret to getting the Town of Brattleboro to removing snow from around one's house in a non-assanine way?* No no, it is not special knowledge that I possess; nor is this sudden popularity about any particular talent. I am popular simply because of who I am.

But before that starts sounding really pompous and egotistical, let me explain what makes me so special: I am young, single, and Jewish.

That is, I am not busy on Christmas.

That is, everyone and their uncle who is celebrating Christmas, and doing so at the homes of relatives or friends who live in other towns, wants me to dog/cat/chicken/house-sit.

And I really don't mind, except a little bit last night when the long, steep driveway where I'm staying was completely coated in ice, forcing me to consider the relative attractiveness of missing my board meeting and a later holiday party versus imminent death (or at least involuntary hibernation in a snow bank until the spring thaw). A night reading on their couch by the stove was OK too. And I certainly don't mind cuddling with my friends' yellow lab or my neighbor's sweet cat.

But I will admit to having a new appreciation for my obscurity of the rest of the year.

*Sorry to get your hopes us; I actually don't think this is possible. Their snow removal "system" is just incredibly assanine. I'm resigning myself to this, and considering its implications for my decisions regarding renting/buying a home in this town in future years. Notes to self: never live on a main road, always have a yard, and make friends with someone who owns a snowblower.

things i learned last night

1. The Vermont Department of Corrections has some really model programs, and some really big problems, and some really wonderful people working for it (and, undoubtedly, some not wonderful people working for it).

2. 80% of incarcerated males in Vermont have not completed a high school education. I dare you to try and convince me crime isn't a class issue.

3. Active listening and asking open-ended questions is really hard. I knew this one already, but I was reminded.

4. There are no substance abuse treatment programs other than Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous offered in the Vermont prison system (and other states' systems? I'm curious...) because if there were mandated programs, SO many more people would have to be sent to prison, because SO many crimes are drug-related. Fascinating.

5. It's particularly tough to be a female prisoner in Vermont (and probably most states) because most women are sentenced to less than a year in prison, which sounds like a good deal but actually sets them up really well for failure. See, men are generally sentenced to a minimum of two years in jail, and therefore have time to integrate into an AA or NA group, to get some education or vocational training, etc. Plus, the last year or eight months of his sentence he's probably working with a caseworker on a re-entry (into the community) plan, finding a job and a place to live, all that stuff. If a woman isn't even in prison for a year total, she doesn't have a chance at any of that. So she gets out and has few options but to fall back into old patterns, because the system has not offered her any ways to work on changing those patterns. Female recidivism rates are much higher than males. Again: fascinating.

6. Life after prison is a paradox - the chicken has to come before the egg has to come before the chicken. This is the thing that just kills me: for most people coming out of the prison system, there is simply nowhere to start and nowhere to go. They might be really ready to turn their life around, but most of society actively thwarts their efforts. Few people will give them jobs, though often they have to have a job as a condition of parole (or they go back to prison). No one will rent them an apartment if they don't have recent rental history, but there's no way to get recent rental history if no one will rent you an apartment. Halfway houses are closing left and right because of lack of funding, and many shelters are already overcrowded and turning people away, and won't take people coming out of prison. What are they supposed to do?

Explanation of why I was learning all this: I'm volunteering for a program with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center called Circles Of Support and Accountability (COSA). We had two nights of training over the last week in order to begin to understand some of the issues facing recently incarcerated folks in this area, and how COSAs and other restorative justice programs try to help break down the barriers. We met two people who have come out of prison and gone through the COSA program, and frankly, hearing their stories made me feel ashamed of myself for anything I've ever complained about or found challenging in my life. I think being part of a COSA is going to be awkward and frustrating and challenging. I can't wait.