I've had a life-long love affair with office supplies.

I got a planner today for the upcoming school year that has a separate page for each day. I've been looking for a planner like this for the last two years. And now I have one. It also has a map of each of the continents that notes every country and every capitol. This summer, Melissa and I had every intention of memorizing all of the world's capitols, but we never got around to studying the flashcards we made. Now I can take up that goal again. Yesss...

Brotherhood 2.0

My big brother Johnny (Hi Johnny!) called me last night to tell me about a video he thought I should see since I had been making fun of him and my little brother Neil for their excessive excitement over the newest Harry Potter book.

But I'm intrigued by the video's opening, "Two Brothers, One Video Blog, 365 Days of Textless Communication." The two creators call their project Brotherhood 2.0. And their video messages to one another are hilarious. I especially like all the "in my pants" jokes. I can't help wondering, though, if this kind of communication is really satisfying for them, or if they actually miss each other. Yes, they're responding to each others videos, but it's with the knowledge that other people, and a lot of them, are watching them communicate. It's so un-intimate. I'm a big fan of YouTube and the kinds of things it can make possible, but as a way of keeping in touch, it seems sort of disjointed.

You know who's not a fan of You Tube? President Bush, apparently. In an article titled "Will the G.O.P. say No to YouTube?" TIME reports that many of the Republicans running for the presidential nomination have decided not to attend the Republican version of the YouTube-based debate in which the the Democratic hopefuls participated earlier this week. They think it's silly. "White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters that the President had not even watched, saying Bush was 'not big on YouTube debates.'" ...That cocky son-of-a-bitch. Too cool for those new-fangled technological advances, Mr. Bush? Especially those that allow real people to ask presidential candidates their real questions? Shocking.

Anyway, I'm leaving Mobile now, and I have some new close friends to keep in touch with. Maybe I'll give this "Textless Communication" stuff a shot before I decide how I feel about it.

"They wished to become frightening"

For my birthday last month, my awesome friends got my two really good books. I'm working my way through one of them, Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, right now. I like it a lot. Vonnegut is hilariously dry and distant in the way that he describes "Earthlings," and often more specifically, Americans. He makes us sound absurd; it's awesome.

Today at work, Arianne, Chris and I watched two kids we'd been bullshitting with for about an hour suddenly break into a fight and beat the shit out of each other in the street. They very nearly attacked each other with bricks, and most definitely would have if it hadn't been for two older guys wrenching them out of their hands.

Over lunch, we talked about it. The sight of one of the boys kicking the other in the head repeatedly as he lay near the curb, and the sound of their shoulders and heads cracking off the pavement as they wrestled each other was disturbing. But then one of the older guys told us that they fight like that every day. And I remembered how one of them, shocked that I'd told him I'd never been in a fight, had asked me just a few minutes before he started wailing on the other kid, "So what do you do if someone grabs your tit or rapes you?" And Chris noted how the kid he was reading the survey to wasn't phased at all by what the violence that was going on a few feet in front of him and continued answering the questions; no big deal.

I found this scene in Breakfast of Champions particularly poignant, considering the day's events:

In one of New York City's many ghettos for dark-skinned people, a group of Puerto Rican boys gathered together in the basement of an abandoned building. They were small, but they were numerous and volatile. They wished to become frightening, in order to defend themselves and their friends and families, something the police wouldn't do. They also wanted to drive the drug peddlers out of the neighborhood, and to get enough publicity, which was very important, to catch the attention of the Government, so that the Government would do a better job of picking up the garbage and so on.

In the spirit of the YouTube debate last night...

"re...stupid"

One of the things that my friends do that I appreciate most is correct themselves when they use the word retarded as a synonym for bad, uncool, shitty, whatever. I try not to be annoying about it, but it really grates on my nerves when people use it. So when I hear my friends correcting themselves when they're about to say it, it means a lot.

sap fest

One popular complaint among the interns about our survey is that it, or any survey, is a completely inadequate way of getting a snapshot of a person. How much can you really gather about a person based on their multiple-choice answers? By far the coolest part about administering the survey for me has been all of the interaction with the kids. Even then though, we only see most kids one time over the course of the summer, usually for an hour and a half, max. But sometimes, you just have a moment with one of them. It's probably stupid to attach a lot of sentimental value to one conversation, or one glance, or one joke with a kid. I'm not saying that any connecting moment should be used as some cheesy symbol for what it's like to work with these kids; because, really that's not much different from thinking that their completed surveys are accurate depictions of who they are.





"Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend right now? Or are you talking to someone, or a couple of people, but you don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend right now?"

She filled in the bubble next to the latter before I could read the other options. I told her that she could mark "A. I don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend" for the rest of the page, flip it, and mark the same for the whole next page.

"I had a boyfriend yesterday..." She mumbles more as she's bubbling down the page.

"Oh yea?" I thought I heard something about getting rid of him. "Did you break up with him?

"Yes ma'am."

"Yea? Why?" She looked at me. I am thinking that I shouldn't have asked that.

"He was talking to other girls on the phone." No big deal.

"Ahh... And you didn't like that?" I say, smiling.

She smiles, "No." Still bubbling.

"How long were you two together?"

"Eleven months."

I say, "Woww" mindlessly, but she's already on the next page, pointing to the next question and asking me, "What do they mean here?"


So I finished the survey with her and went outside for Arianne to pick me up. I didn't have my phone with me, but I knew it wouldn't be long until she was back.

The girl sees me out on the curb, and comes out of the house. "You can wait inside until your ride gets here!" she offers.

I figure she's just being polite. Inside, she kept calling me "Ma'am" until I said, "Hey, I'm not that much older than you. You don't have to call me that." I tell her not to worry about it and that it won't be long at all. I start doodling on the manila envelope that her survey is in, but I feel like I'm being watched.

She's standing on the porch. "I'm just gonna wait until your friend gets here." She's protecting me.

"Oh don't worry about it. I'm great here... Do you want me to knock when she gets here?"

"Yea." She goes back inside.

A few cars go by on the street in front of me. From one of them, I hear a male voice, "Hey girl!" Instinctively, I look up. I'm sort of asking for it, sitting on the curb at 10:45 in the morning with a clipboard and a name tag and my fair skin and blonde hair. I probably look completely out of place.

The car stops and reverses. "What are you doing, girl?"

"Oh I'm just working," I say, thinking how I look like the last thing I'm doing right now is working.

"Survey?"

Relief. "Yea, survey." He smiles and drives off.

I turn around just in time to see her retreating back into the house, quickly so that I can't see that she's still watching out for me. She's thirteen years old.

Iraq's official language

As I was perusing The Best American Nonrequired 2006 today, I came across the Iraqi Constitution, approved by a referendum in October of 2005. Pretty interesting. Some of it sounds exactly like the US Constitution, but the ways that it is different are fascinating. The Preamble opens,

In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate

We have honored the sons of Adam.

Another point of note is

Work is a right for all Iraqis so as to guarantee them a decent living.

I am also particularly intrigued by the way that the document deals with language. It's in Article 4 and says,

First: The Arabic language and Kurdish language are the two official languages of Iraq. The right of Iraq is to educate their children in their mother tongue, such as Turkmen, Syriac and Armenian, in government educational institutions in accordance with educational guidelines, or in any other language in private educational institutions, is guaranteed.

Second: The scope of the term official language and the means of applying the provisions of this article shall be defined by law which shall include:

A. Publication of the official gazette, in the two languages;

B. Speech, conversation and expression in official settings, such as the Council of Representatives, the Council of Ministers, courts, and official conferences, in either of the two languages;

C. Recognition and publication of the official documents and correspondences in the two languages;

D. Opening schools that teach the two languages, in accordance with the educational guidelines;

E. Use of both languages in any settings enjoined by the principle of equality such as bank notes, passports and stamps.

(Third: The federal institutions and agencies in the Kurdistan region shall use the Arabic and Kurdish languages.)

Fourth: The Turkmen language and Syriac language are two other official languages in the administrative units in which they represent density of population.

Fifth: Each region or governorate may adopt any other local language as an additional official language if the majority of its population so decide in a general referendum.

This is different from the US; we don't have an official language, technically. Some people want to make English our official language, and it gets talked about a lot especially within the context of immigration reform. It's a lot easier to say, "I just think that if you're going to come to this country, you should speak our language," than it is to say, "I don't like Mexicans." But this thing seems to be where it's at. Two official languages, plus a just-in-case clause for any extra language that the locals want to add on, niiceee.

I'm a genie in a bottle

I can't figure out how to get this photo upright. It's an advertisement for a scholarship awarded to high school students who have civic service experience. I'm not sure what the pink flower is for, except to deter any insecure high school boy trying to establish his masculinity from applying.


"COME SEE WHAT SHERRY IS GOT COOKING" Yes, please.


The kids are still periodically elaborating on their bubbled-in answers. This one's particularly scary.


And if you don't go inside to speak with Mr. Lee, is that an indication that you don't love your family?


Here's Arianne and I working today. Some kids called us Christina Aguilera.



This is what Christina Aguilera looks like.

still not over this site

!!!!!!111

I'm so excited right now. Josh posted recently about the kitchen fiasco that I mentioned before that, aside from being maddening, is pretty hilarious. And I'm so glad he did, because his friend directed his (and my, as a faithful Josh-reader) attention to www.passiveaggressivenotes.com.


I mean, seriously. That is good stuff. You can even browse their entries by categories like "CAPS LOCK," "spelling and grammar police," and "exclamation-point happy!" What could be funnier?


I love it.

yikes

http://www.anti-war.us/gallery/gallery8.php

Although really, "would'nt" should be "wouldn't." I'm just saying...

Book Review: Olaf Reads by Joan Lexau, illustrated by Harvey Weiss

In this book, Joan Lexau tells three different Olaf stories, none of which makes any sense at all. None of them has a plot. Each ends unexpectedly and strangely. I think the moral of the story is supposed to be that goofy antics inevitably follow the inability to read properly. Illiteracy = silly. I love it. A favorite excerpt? I'd have trouble deciding between:

"Olaf," said his mother, "will you mail a letter for me?"
"What will you give me?" Olaf asked.
"Nothing," said his mother. "You should do it because it I ask."
"O.K.," said Olaf.
"I will give you a cookie when you get back," said his mother.
"For mailing the letter?" Olaf said.
"No! Because I want you to have a cookie," said his mother.

and

"Who pulled the fire bell?" asked a policeman.
"Pull?" said Olaf.
"Did you do it?" said the policeman.
"But it said Pull," said Olaf. "Are you going to put me in jail?"
"No, but I will scold you," said the policeman. "It is good to read. But you must think, too. Read and think."
"Yes," said Olaf.
A fireman said, "You must not pull something that says Pull if you don't know what it is."

What? For Olaf, I'd say adults are probably confusing. One thing that the book has going for it is cool illustration. Even if Olaf can't seem to read the signs around him well enough to avoid making an ass of himself, at least the way he sees the text around him is whimsical and fun!

(not) home, (not) sweet (not) home

We came back to the dorms after spending the holiday away to find these notes taped to our doors.


There are about seventy-five people staying in this dorm; all of us keep our groceries in one fridge, all of us use the same stove, oven, microwave, counter-top, dishes. And we keep pissing the higher-ups off by not leaving the kitchen clean, so they're locking it for a few days to teach us a lesson. I mean, it is annoying when people don't clean up after themselves. That said, the signage that has been posted over this whole kitchen ordeal is mucho passive-aggressive. I wish I had taken photos of the signs that came before this one. One featured a picture of Mr. T. and read something along the lines of "I pity the fool who does not clean up his or her dishes!" Anyway, by Tuesday afternoon, the dorm-powers-that-be decided that they had had enough of our slovenly ways. We came home from work to find Mr. T. gone. A smiley-face on a new sign exclaiming, "Well, you've done it!" seemed to take pleasure in the pain that we will inevitably feel at our exclusion from la cocina. In quite cliche fashion, the text on the sign ended with, "Have a nice day!"

What gets me about the sign above is the grammatical structure of the last sentence. "These belong to your neighbors and were removed without permission!" Really, it should probably read, "These belong to your neighbors and you removed them without permission!" Make that passive tense active, you know? Be direct about it. To be fair, passive tense is not technically wrong, but the sign's creator may have expressed a stronger message if s/he had more clearly identified the subject of that passive verb. Something like, "These belong to your neighbors and were removed without permission [by you inconsiderate assholes]!"