I Don't Necessarily Agree With Everything I Say

Making a Life in Education - A Self-Profile

2011-05-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

Tulane student aspires to create a new education model that teaches students valuable life-lessons

“Beer?”

Alex Lipoff popped the cap off of an Anchor Steam Lager bottle with the butt of his lighter, offering it in my direction, and leaned back on his corduroy couch, crossing his leg. How could this possibly be the person who wants to fix the American public school system?

“I learned that at camp. There’s more to a plastic lighter than just cigarettes.” I looked at Lipoff, puzzled. He was smiling, half-listening to the Telemundo 6 PM news, and from the number of bottles on his coffee table, was already a few beers ahead of me. Everything about his demeanor said “skateboarder,” not “Future Chancellor of Education.”

He was wearing a red flannel shirt over a white v-neck, jeans, and a pair of weathered vans. Stubble was beginning to show around the perimeter of his face, but at 22, circles on each of his cheeks are still bare. In his left ear he wears a 5mm black gauge earring, but he reminded me, “Its probably time for [the earring] to go. I’ll have to start looking professional one of these days.”

Alex Lipoff’s dream is to found a school with a distinct model that rewards students’ talents rather than penalizing their deficits. Based on the psychological theory of multiple intelligences, Lipoff’s hope is to design an open-ended learning community that allows students to thrive in ways that traditional schools have forgotten. “There are people who can barely read or write, but whose interpersonal or artistic skills or their senses of humor are off the charts. How can schools still benefit these kinds of students?”

Lipoff, a Pennsylvania native, spent a year travelling in Latin America and Spain in 2009; his fluency in Spanish is not from the classroom, though. “You have my Chilean girlfriend to thank for that,” he says with a grin. As a senior at Tulane University, Lipoff studies Creative Writing and plans to work toward his MA in English next year. After that, though, he has big plans.

“I want to teach,” Lipoff says. “I really think that is the base motivation of my real aspirations. There is something about being able to help someone learn something about themselves that excites me. Think about how powerful it can be if we are able to go beyond what it says in our children’s textbooks, and instead craft lesson plans that take that same information and are able to tell our children something about themselves and the world they live in.”

During his sophomore year at Tulane, Lipoff designed an after -school curriculum for enrichment in Math and Science that is now being implemented at Benjamin Franklin Elementary on Jefferson Avenue. “It’s called Science Club,” Lipoff says. “The whole point is that it’s fun. We don’t call it ‘Algebra’ or ‘Research Methods,’ even though we talk about all of the same concepts.” Enrollment in Benjamin Franklin’s Science Club has exceeded the limit of 30 students for three consecutive years.

Lipoff’s mission statement is simple: “I want to create a system in which the information we are giving to kids fundamentally changes the way in which they see themselves.” In his model, the real goal behind learning to write a five paragraph essay is not simply to put it down on paper, but for students to learn that they’re allowed to try things that challenge them, to value work, to learn the importance of clearly conveying an idea. “Wow. If they then leave the classroom and take those same lessons into their life outside of school? That is when we’re succeeding as educators.”

“I’ve met plenty of students who, for whatever reason, are simply not wired to be able to put down five coherent paragraphs with an introduction, body, and conclusion. But that very same kid has amazing interpersonal skills and is able to convey his idea orally – what would be wrong with him or her presenting a paper to the class, persuasively elaborating his or her points in the same format as the essay?”

Lipoff believes that it is students like these who are lost in our current education system. “Learning to reward people for their strengths may create our country’s new generation of great orators, pastors, and motivational speakers.”

To Lipoff, its no surprise that so many students are unable to sit still or behave in our nation’s public schools. “What would you do if everything about your education told you that who you are is not the model of what a student should be? How could you possibly love to learn, let alone pay attention?”

He knows it will be a tough road, though. “No one will want to hire me,” he says, laughing. “What I’m proposing is threatening to the status quo of standardized education. There are plenty of teachers’ unions and political lobbies who are just fine with the way things are. The problem is that we’ve created a system that looks out for adults more than children. Where are the lobbyists campaigning that not just any education, but a quality education, is an uninalienable right?”

Lipoff is just fine with those consequences, though. “I know my path is a terrible way to make a living. But it’s a fantastic way to make a life.”

Falling Down to Earth, CH. 1

2010-12-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

First two pages of Chapter 1 from my recently-written memior about parent/child relationships, Falling Down to Earth. I'd love to hear what people think, and contact me if you'd like to read on:

My son, my executioner

I take you in my arms

Quiet and small and just astir

and whom my body warms

Sweet death, small son,

our instrument of immortality,

your cries and hunger document

our bodily decay.

We twenty two and twenty five,

who seemed to live forever,

observe enduring life in you

and start to die together.

Donald Hall, 1955

om leaned on the horn of her dust-caked ’98 Land Rover with all of her hundred and few pounds. To the right side of the street, some construction workers were watching the street parade that had traffic backed up for nearly six miles. Their blatant laughter at her misfortune caught her attention, and the attention of her two children in the backseat.

“You think that’s funny?” she screamed. Tears welled beneath her eyes and flooded her cheeks. She pounded her fists against the horn again and again, until the undersides of her hands and her knuckles were red as raw ground beef.

“Fucking limp-dick assholes!” Through sobs, she made raspy gasps for air. “I’m visiting someone in the hospital!” she lied.

There was nowhere to go. We were trapped in the transparency of the car, surrounded by flashing lights and the rhythmic snares of the passing parade. Mom put her head down on the wheel. After a moment, she raised her head, checking the status of my younger sister, strapped in the car-seat behind her. I caught her harsh glimpse in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were caked with running mascara, which now had reached her cheekbones and the side of her nose, making her look like a horrifying clown.

I began to feel a warm tingle in my face. I clenched my fists to stop it. As much as I fought, I began to cry too. I cried because of the traffic, and because I was scared, and because my mother was crying. I cried because she cursed and because she lied. I cried mostly, though, because my father told me to take care of my mother and sister. He told me to be the man of the house. Since I was crying, there was no way I was doing what he asked.

The parade itself was a spectacle. The Radnor High School marching band led the way, dressed in maroon jackets with gold buttons and trim. Their drum major wore a white shako with a tall red plume, and a white cape and gloves. I imagined for a moment that I was there to watch and cheer them on, and quietly inched forward in my seat, sniffling and wiping my face, to keep my gaze fixed upon their leader. He had an angular jaw, jutting out from beneath his tall hat, making him look regal. As quickly as the tears began, they were over. That’s the way my family has always been, though. We laugh and cry quickly. Then, forget. We feel in real-time, and then move on. How else can you keep moving forward? Maybe it was that I wasn’t used to seeing parades, but something about it that morning still felt special and ironic, before I even knew what irony was.

After an hour or more of watching and waiting, inching closer and closer to the intersection, a burly and fiercely mustached traffic cop waved us through. Mom accelerated sharply, screeching her way onto the entrance ramp for Interstate 76, westbound, toward central-Pennsylvania.

The drama of city blocks became a film-reel of trees, and then just highway. Makeshift vegetable stands and broken-down cars in front yards were the attractions. Every thirty or forty miles we’d pass an old gas station, still wood and with unkempt sprouts of grass around the perimeter, as though a divine finger had touched the earth in random spots and declared, “Life will be!” There were old brass pumps out front and sometimes an overweight attendant sitting out in a lawn chair, smoking a cigarette or drinking coffee.

Writing Again

2010-02-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

I write...because.

And four months is a long time not to write.

It's been becoming increasingly harder to tell people, or at least listen to myself tell people, that I major in Creative Writing when I haven't been, well, creatively writing. It crosses my mind every few days - something to put down on a "to-do" list, only to discard soon thereafter in favor of distraction: a few hours of Spanish tapas, an afternoon walk, online procrastination.

It's not that I haven't wanted to - it's the blank, pale white, useless nothing that's had me tongue-tied. How could I ever explain the colors of a Patagonian 3:18 AM sunset, other than to ask you to imagine that you'd been out in the middle of the horizon, standing beneath the retreating light, in the middle of the deep red that you've seen so many times from the shore? Never before had the sun set around me, and yet I had nothing to say about it.

How do I tell you about Machu Picchu? How can I remember exactly how it sounded when the two alpacas darted through frightened crowds of tourists until, in the center of one of the wonders of the world, one mounted the other and commenced to fucking?

Maybe its better I can't...

The final moments of writer's block is so often depicted as a moment of realization - where all of a sudden it all comes into focus, and the words flow through your fingers once again, that everywhere you look you see your writing, your words, hanging on fenceposts and in the wrinkles of your bed, waiting to be thrust into the perfect sentence. Well, I've never written a perfect sentence; I never will. And I'll never find words waiting for me. Just sitting down to type has been more attricious than anything else, a sort of guilty emptiness. If i'm not writing, what do I actually do?

And therein exists my fundamental problem. My question of existence, of essence. If I'm not writing, what am I doing? Well, I've watched a few movies, got my hair cut three times, slept a little. Bought a guitar, did a lot of talking, only a little listening, and did some thinking. I changed continents, twice. Saw some family and friends, only to move on again. I felt increasingly smaller in a bigger world.

Only now does it all come together again, though, slowly and smokily, where mists of ideas float by, and unless you want to inhale, you fan your face. No one forces me to write, to spend an hour plus blogging, putting in and taking out commas, as though somehow I'm preventing the bastardization of the English language. I'm actually contributing - "blogging" is a really shitty word.

I'd never thought about why I'd been writing until I wasn't. There's an inherent vulnerability that exists - you get to judge me and my thoughts without my even knowing you can read. Yet, I like you. I'm more honest with you than with most people. You don't ask too many questions, and no small-talk is necessary. We've got a good thing going, you and me.

Yet I'd never asked you any questions, until recently. All I asked was, "Why?" And it took you four months to answer, "Because."

All in all, its nice to be back.

San Pedro de Atacama

2009-11-09T06:29:00.000-08:00

All of the power in town was out - hotels and restaurant kitchens had gone to backup generators usually kept hidden and dusty, reserved for only this situation. I had arrived finally after a full day's travel and had only took my backpack from my shoulders, leaning against the hollow metal of my hostal's bunk-bed, and placing the already dirty bag on a dusty, adobe floor. What does a tourist, traveling alone, and instantly without power, do in such a situation? Beer, I thought. Beer.

I walked down the street only a half-block before finding a small, candle-lit eatery with uneven wooden tables, a dusty floor, and a full refrigerator.

"Do you want to eat something with that? Or anything?"
"No, thanks, I'll just be drinking."

And with that, pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from my backpack, and in the dimly-lit bar, tried to look around and observe as much as I could. I felt old-fashioned and lonesome, like a tragic character from a 19th-century set novel; There I sat, at a table, the wood smooth yet unfinished, enough so to run a finger along but still coarse like teeth on a popsicle stick, creaking and rocking beneath the shifting weight of my writing hand, with a small, flickering water-candle dancing in my beer's reflection.

And yes, I was in the middle of the Atacama Desert, one of the largest, most vast, and driest places on Earth. I found myself, sitting at that table, writing about silence. A kind of silence so powerful it is listened for, almost giving it the fundamental properties of sound. The silence of desert, the emptiness, has a specific effect on a writer - the tone of my words was stoic, static, small lonely pictures I tried to draw - the scene of an empty, dark street. The scene of the bar. The scene of the sky, tattooed by constellations and freckled by countless stars.

My trip to the Atacama Desert was an examination of size, I found. I continually saw geographic structures - volcanoes, high-altitude lakes, salt flats, geyser fields, geothermic pools - yet, I kept coming back to the sky. I had looked, but until then, I had never really seen the Southern Sky. How big it felt. How small I felt. Observing the size of the natural world, something that has become vacant from Northeastern suburban life, was in a word, humbling. What are we to make of the natural power, the natural beauty of the Earth?

For me, I think the Atacamians have figured it out - and its something intuitively that I had done. We just sit, or stand, and watch, in silence.

All in all, shh - just listen.

Chile con Ecuador

2009-10-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

I wasn't even sure if I was understanding correctly.

There are times my abilities (or, lack-there-of) in Spanish lead me to believe I am being asked inane and meaningless questions, only to come to the realization moments later that these are usually normal questions that I have been unable to follow.

"Would you rather be on the normal bus or the singing bus?"

Right? Initially confusing, especially for someone coming from a country whose best chant is simply repeating tirelessly, or rather, pretty tiredly, "USA-USA-USA!" (I've never heard a "USA" chant lasting more than 30 syllables).

I opted for the singing bus. How else would I rather spend my first live professional soccer game - especially one of international magnitude, where Chile would be taking on Ecuador? For Chile, it was a game for mainly jockeying for positioning in the South American continental standings, having already qualified a week earlier for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with a win over Columbia. For Ecuador, a win and an Argentine loss would mean qualifying for "los mundiales."

The ride by bus to Santiago from Valparaíso is about two hours, and I'd be surprised if we tallied more than 15 minutes of silence. There are roughly eight prominent Chilean soccer songs, only three or four of which I've mastered lyrically. However, just slamming the beat into the seat in front of me, my knuckles red with energy, was enough to show my participation. Anything I could've done would've been drowned out anyway by the two drums, a snare and a bass, brought onto the bus and stationed in the back row.

The game itself was an incredible experience. I arrived almost 5 hours earlier than game-time to claim my seat in the general admission seating section. It may as well have been standing only - from 2:30 PM until the end of the game at nearly 10:00, I was on my feet, jumping and singing and flailing along with 70,000 other fanatics who would put the best of the Cameron Crazies to shame.

What about this world is so different than mine? Why aren't Philadelphia fans - known as some of the most passionate, and certainly most brutal, in the world of sports - as fanatical, devoted, emotionally invested in their teams like South Americans? Why does an usher in a yellow "STAFF" t-shirt restrain hundreds of fans in each section, while there were literal SWAT teams of Chilean Police in every section, armed with full riot gear, just to keep the peace? Why were there Chileans who snuck flares into the stadium and lit them off during the game, and there are times we don't even stand for the starting lineups?

Do they have less to care about? Less to devote themselves to? Fewer diversions to dilute their passions? I don't think so - They have the same preoccupations about work, family, government, as we do - that I've learned first hand living with a Chilean family. Is there more rivalry between South American countries than between teams in the US? No way - I doubt any rivalry in the world could top Duke/UNC, Yankees/Red Sox, Michigan/Ohio State.

To me, these passions are passions of Nationality. Simply, South Americans are more concerned about national identity than Americans. Haven't you ever offended a Cuban or a Bolivian by calling him Mexican? The United States of America is the most powerful country in the world - and we're never shy about reminding everyone else about it. If we happen to lose upcoming matches in November to Slovakia or Denmark, the majority of Americans would not be aversely affected - We're still the best, regardless of what the international standings say, right? That's not a luxury the rest of the soccer-loving world has, though.

For Chileans, and for the rest of the world, really, the standings and outcomes of their national football clubs is a direct reflection of the country itself - its what they cling to, how they define themselves. Ever wondered why the Olympics has rapidly lost popularity in the United States since the 1980's? Since capitalism emerged victorious, who cares who can pole vault highest or hurl the shot put furthest? But remember when it wasn't so clear - when the US Hockey team toppled the U.S.S.R. in 1980? It was entitled a "Miracle on Ice."

The argument that soccer is less popular in the United States, and that is the only difference, doesn't hold weight with me. The World Baseball Classic made more headlines over the debate of whether players were overextending themselves and doing disservices to their Major League clubs - the fact that Japan shut down the American club in the semi-finals didn't bother too many folks the following day.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be an incredibly interesting series of events, not only in soccer, but also as an examination of cultural anthropologies. How will American fans, and American players, react to the first international competition since the dramatic deficits experienced by the American economy? How will we defend ourselves? How will we react for the first time in a long time that we may appear not-so-powerful?

All in all, time to write some soccer songs.

Mi Cumpleaños 21

2009-10-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just getting straight which Alex was sitting where was enough of a challenge.

My family had put out the nice linens - the plastic table-covering and paper napkins - which draped like wrinkly skin the rusting ping-pong table, our dining room buffet. I sat on the side closest to the garden - a patch of soil boxed by concrete, spilling ivy up the fence and over the median onto the patio floor. Around the table to my right sat Alex, my 27 year old brother, who had just celebrated his most recent birthday the week beforehand. Across the table sat Axel, my 20 year old brother, who was flanked by Alexis, an older uncle and soccer enthusiast from Santiago.

More than once, I turned to respond to a question, a request for more potato salad or cucumbers, or to pour another glass of wine, only to realize that I was never the intended party for such requests. I had enough to focus on in front of me though - the conversation revolving around the hazy events of the night before, what was the frat party of my 21st birthday, which ended in one friend being escorted home by the Chilean Police, one friend running down the middle of the boulevard trying to catch a ride to Santiago, and another friend in a fistfight on a local bus. The meal was full of laughter and full of food, so much so that I didn't know by the end which was hurting me more. I found myself gasping for breath in between bites, fearful that I might choke, trying to swallow my laughter and grilled chorizo simultaneously.

It wasn't until the end of the meal when it happened, though - the food had been cleared, and still remaining on the table, most of a bottle of red wine. My Chilean father pushed it slowly toward me. "¿Tienes 21, no? La mayor edad en los Estados Unidos." And with a smirk, signaled international symbol for "Chug," a thumb to the lips with an extended pinky finger. The entire lunch, a group of 15, all turned their attention to me. "Fuck," I muttered, rubbed the side of my face, prickly of 3 or 4 day's beard, and put the bottle to my lips. Surrounded by chanting Chileans around me, I chugged a half-bottle of red wine at lunch on my 21st birthday.

I had to admit I had been missing the idea of the customary 21st birthday chug. The night beforehand, as the clock ticked toward midnight, I stood alone, beer in hand, in a bar in Valparaíso. The closer the night stretched toward morning, the more uncertain I became. I was supposed to be meeting friends at 11:30, but they had yet to arrive. Never in my preconceptions of legal alcohol consumption did it cross my mind that for my first legitimate time, I would be spending it by myself. It was a truly lonely feeling.

What I decided was what could be a better, non-generic introduction to adulthood than to approach random, latin women and introduce myself. At 11:54 I walked over to a table of Chileans and asked if I could join them. After no objections, I began the general formalities of conversation, the small-talk that translates both in English and Spanish. Yes, I was from the United States. Yeah, I'm a Study Abroad student. No, I've just arrived in August. Which bars do you guys like here in Valpo? As midnight approached, I may have casually slipped into conversation that it was about to be my 21st birthday, and that it would probably be condusive to everyone's evenings if we all took a shot at midnight. By the time my friends arrived close to 12:30, I had already befriended 6 new Chileans, and was up on the dance floor learning new steps to the Salsa.

This is a story about information. After all, everything that happens to us, or around us - my night alone in a bar - is only information. Until I decide how to feel about it, how to interpret that information, and what I want to do with it, nothing about my outlook, nothing about my evening, has been decided. With the same amount of energy, I could have sat by myself, generally observing the rest of the bar, trying not to look conspicuously lonely and certainly feeling awkward, battling insecurities and self-deprecations.

Instead, I chose to interpret the information that night as an opportunity - to be bold, to be confident, to be extraverted. What I found was that I could make even the worst situations - spending midnight of my 21st birthday alone - into celebrations. Maybe most people already know this. Maybe most people go to bars by themselves with the sole purpose of meeting strangers. For me, it was a first, and it was something new I learned about myself. I had the power to determine how I wanted to feel about the situation, and now, I know I have the Spanish to chat up any hispanic woman I may meet. What better a gift could I have given to myself for my 21st birthday?

All in all, what a birthday weekend.

Mendoza

2009-10-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

I peered over the edge and looked down at the rest of them, throwing rocks, sitting in a circle, bored from the past forty minutes watching one after another group member repel slowly down the 60 meter rock-face. I swallowed, as though to check for a sore throat, a type of distressing action for me - involuntary, yet purposeful.

"¡Tienes miedo!" teased our guide, a short, pretty Argentinian, who, for her, was only spending another day at work belaying nervous and pale tourists.

"Uh, a...Ya." was all I could muster in response. She was right, I was scared. It's no secret that I'm terrified of heights, and yet there I had been, knowingly agreeing to the activity of mountain repelling in the pre-Andes Mountain range the day beforehand.

Click. My carabiner was disconnected from the steel line set up for those waiting to repel. Click. My carabiner was connected to the safety line (not much more than a glorified dog leash driven into the side of the rock-wall). Click. I was connected to the belay rope that hung 200 feet to the ground. Click. I was disconnected from the safety line.

I inhaled, turned to face my smirking guide, and took a backward step. Then another. Then remembered to breathe.

To be writing now is a clear testament that the rest of the repel went forward as intended, one foot after another, until both were planted together, and I stood again perpendicular to the surface of the earth, not horizontal. And even though the feat was nothing to brag about in most circles (a 60 meter repel is no thrill-seeker's dream activity) I found myself on the ground feeling accomplished, and ready, if necessary, to do it again.

What happens when we decide to and knowingly walk through fear in our lives? In my experiences, not only with rock-climbing, I have found that these situations become me versus myself, rather than me versus the task. The hardest part for me is figuring out when something scares me, when I avoid uncomfortable, challenging situations without consciously taking note. The easy part, I've found, is just doing it. Just walking through the fear. It has become autonomic. Once I've decided I'm scared, what else can I possibly choose?

All in all, any openings for a window cleaner?

Fiestas Patrias

2009-09-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

By the time I had decided the clamoring of pots and pans only feet away from my bedroom was enough to rouse me out of sleep, it was already after 1:00 PM and most of my extended Chilean family had arrived at the house for the September 18th Independence Day barbeque. I rose wearily and staggered, as one might after attending $100 Chilean Peso (Roughly $0.20 USD) Piscola night at "Goose," a multi-level discotheque only walking distance from Viña del Mar's downtown Plaza. The truth is, the entire week leading up to September 18th is the reason the holiday is pluralized in Spanish; every night of the week is a night out to the countless Ramadas (Provincial carnivals) in every small neighborhood tucked away in Valparaíso's hills, then afterwards, only at 2:00 or 3:00 AM, to a club for live Salsa and Merengue or a discotheque for Reggeton.

After quickly washing up and dressing, I walked through the kitchen to the outdoor patio (Converted from the garage setting that usually occupies the small concrete plot) but which now revealed aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and even older, unknown to me, siblings. And, oh yeah, more food en route to hungry stomachs than I had seen in my time here: Grilled ribs, steak, chicken, empanadas, and of course, choripán (A Chilean staple most roughly translated to hot-Italian sausage), not to mention the salads, potatoes, and pastas that lined a banquet-style plastic table draped in green tarping.

Everyone had already been outside for more than an hour, listening to Cueca music (Chile's national dance) eating appetizers, drinking Chicha (A home- fermented fruit wine, brought by an Aunt who had brewed it in a clay urn for a year's time) and enjoying their holiday in the sunshine. The meal was full of laughs and conversation, and of course, the occasional question from me, asking for clarification on a word's meaning or pronunciation. After everyone was satisfied with their newly acquired Thanksgiving-esque, post-meal discomfort, we began to clear the table only to forget our task and continue talking hours longer into the late afternoon.

My youngest Chilean sister, Leslie, 18, had invited a friend who brought his guitar, more than likely with the intention of playing more Cueca music, but instead, began sharing the English pop-songs he knew with me. Before long, I sat armed with guitar, in front of the entirety of the party, wondering what my gift in return could possibly be. After fooling around for a little bit with Santana excerpts and blues riffs, I knew the crowd wouldn't be happy until I played something with which they could sing along. Turns out, Chileans are quite familiar with Dispatch, and I felt like I was somewhere between a psychedelic episode and the twilight zone; never could I have imagined I'd ever be sitting somewhere in South America, playing guitar, surrounded by little more than complete strangers, all singing the words to "The General" on Chilean Independence day.

The middle-most of my Chilean brothers, also Alex, 24, had made mention of the 18th as a night out not to miss, so when I accepted his invitation to accompany him and his friends that evening, I knew I was in store for an authentic Independence Day, from beginning to end (whenever that would be). As I would come to find, that end was 8:30 AM, curled on the couch of an apartment in a beach-town called Reñaca, 15 Km northeast of Valparaíso.

So maybe it was the sleep deprivation, or just the general disorientation I was experiencing, but I got to thinking. What are the things that bring people together? Is it food? Music? Alcohol? Sure, these different activities, sitting down at the table for lunch, going to a concert, or going out clubbing, literally bring people to the same physical spaces. But is it as simple as that? Is there something about the food, the notes, the wine, that helps create the bonds I felt forming on September 18th (And, sure, a good part of the 19th as well)?

After taking some time mulling it over, what I concluded that it was none of these things, and all of these things, that bring people together. As humans, we're hard-wired to crave connections, to be loving, to be intimate. Why else would things like "Book Clubs" exist, when one could just as easily read on his or her own time? Or fraternities and sororities? Or camps?

Like everything else in the world, family meals and music venues and local bars are just human creations, and just microcosms, that sometimes hide the true reason for their existence; We just want to live our lives, in every waking (and, sleeping) moment possible, in the shared, divine experience of being in the company of others.

All in all, happy Fiestas Patrias.

Isla de Pascua

2009-09-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

I never thought my travels in South America would take me to Polynesia, let alone the most isolated inhabited landmass on Earth, and yet, there I was: Easter Island. The entirety of the tiny South Pacific island is covered in tiny dirt paths, and is tattooed by the Rapa Nui culture. Among the countless tourist boutiques and sightseeing landmarks is buried a bond to the island shared by the native population that I had never witnessed before. I hold ties to my homeland, always (or, almost always) rooting for the Red, White, and Blue in the World Cup or Olympics, but I certainly could live abroad, even indefinitely, and be fine. Though small, the entire population of Easter Island seems to move as a cohesive unit, as a family. I was to find out later, of course, that every single living Rapa Nui is in fact family, literally, all descending from thirty-six original ancestors who re-settled the island after having been extracted years beforehand by European slave traders who had exhausted the island’s population.

The island itself is triangular in shape, and is situated roughly 4,000 miles westward of continental Chile. Pointing like the head of a spear toward the islands of French Polynesia, Easter Island stretches only 60 square miles, yet is littered in rich antiquity not found in hundreds of miles of American pastoral. The nearly 900 moai statues tower above tourists, or sometimes, lie crumbling below them, raising uncertainty about the island's turbulent history, characterized by warfare, disease, overpopulation, and slavery.

Yet, There is something powerful and bonding that occurs through scarcity, through collective suffering, through hardship. The Rapa Nui people don’t simply choose Easter Island as a home, but rather, are drawn spiritually and genetically to the homeland of their ancestors. My time in Polynesia, as I walked among the crumpling ruins of a tattered, ancient people, or overlooked massive volcano craters, raised questions for me that dominated my thinking.

What do we learn from our familial and geographical histories? There is the old cliché that explains, “One cannont navigate his future until he knows his past.” Another asserts, “History always repeats itself.” So, what are we left to think? We cannot correctly respond to future events without knowing past events, which we’re bound to eventually become aquainted with anyway on account of the repetitive nature of the past? What would be the point, then, of knowing the past if it will only reveal the exact storyline that will by played out over the course of one’s own life? Why, then, strive for change or upward mobility or, anything really, if we’re bound watch re-runs for eternity?

My time listening to the Rapa Nui retelling their history made me consider my own. They speak with a latent urgency in their voices, as though desperate to know what they cannot, as though the very meaning of their lives and their fate thereafter depends on uncovering any and all of the mysteries that shroud the island.

What I came to realize was that I have a very limited knowledge of the stories that shape my own family, the histories that continue to influence the interactions of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, and until now, have had very little interest in them. I don’t know the history of my name, the home countries of great grandparents, the language of my ancestors. The Rapa Nui have so much that modern science has yet to reveal about their predecessors, and still they strive to explain. They look inquisitively at the Moai, trying to explain their creators, their destructors, knowing that, like notes left in the margins of novels, they provide an intimate insight about those who have come before. Truly, they tell themselves stories in order to live.

All in all, time to start making a family tree.

Cuando Hay Sufrimiento...

2009-09-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

So often feeling well rested is associated with sleeping late into the day, but I've found the opposite. I've found that I am my most alert and focused after having woken up early, eaten a quick, small breakfast, and jump into the day the way I would a cold swimming pool.

Yesterday, I woke to the sounds of birds chirping outside my groundfloor window, and it was one of the many instances where my mind was awake before my body. The dissonance associated with the two's separation meant that all of the information I would interpret in the following twelve to fifteen seconds would be, just that, information, and any associated sentiment would be lost in neurological translation.

"Birds chirping. Alarm. Not yet. 6:25. Birds chirping? 6:25. Not yet. Birds chirping before 6:25? Shit."

I reached slowly for my cell phone, pressed any button that would brighten the screen, and awaited the answer to just how long, exactly, I had overslept. 8:48. Two hours and twenty-three minutes longer than I had intended. I scrambled together my things, forwent breakfast, threw the lunch I had prepared the night before into a plastic bag, and ran out the door to catch the first bus I could find.

After spending roughly two and a half minutes in my first class, and then having a three hour break until my next class, I decided I was hungry and should probably dig into my lunch. I took out what was a sort of beef stew and rice concoction in a tupperwear container and headed to the cafeteria to use a microwave, which is stored on a shelf at the far end of the dining room at about eye-level. When my meal was hot, I opened the door, reached for my food...

and spilled my entire, soupy lunch. All over the microwave, the shelves, the floor, myself. I didn't know what to think, and then from some deep, unknown place, slowly and quietly at first, but then bigger, louder, laughs began to emerge. What else could I do? I stood there in the cafeteria, in front of everyone, hungry, disoriented, embarrassed, and laughing.

"¿Crees en Dios?"
"Um..."
"¿Tú, tú crees en Dios?
"Um... no?"

I had since left the dining room, and was sitting outside on a bench reading, when I was approached by a semi-circle of three Chilean students on behalf of Jesus. They went on talk to me for the next five minutes about how God loves us, all of us, even if we don't know him or refuse to accept him, in Spanish. I had the time to spare, and didn't want to be rude, so I withheld the information that most of their lecture was being lost on me linguistically, and entirely ideologically. They handed me a flyer for a meeting this upcoming Thursday, entitled "Cuando Hay Sufrimiento, Dios está con nosotros." All I could think of was the Mitch Hedberg sketch on "Handouts" where he comments that no matter the message of people handing out flyers, all he hears is "Here, you throw this away." Still though, it did seem ironic to me though, that the day that I had slept through class and then spilled my lunch, and was sitting outside cold, hungry, bored, and alone, I was approached by religion, offering answers. God does work in mysterious ways, I've heard.

One of the Chileans handed me a notebook to write my e-mail, and fortunately, the divine spirits granted me quick thinking enough to write down without hesitation, mpeters@tulane.edu. Come on, God's got to have a sense of humor...

Time passed as time waiting for class usually does, slowly, but finally 3:00 arrived, and my last class of the day, "Social Responsibility in the University" began. Our professor began with the subject of "University" and how, at its inception, was designed to teach students, within its curriculum, the skills and ideas necessary to solve societal problems. Now though, our teacher argued, the University has become primarily a business, selling students only the information necessary to achieve a high-paying job in one specific field. I was almost too hungry to focus, but when we were prompted to explain what "Dignidad" meant to us, our teacher's cell phone interrupted:

"I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfucking P-I-M-P"

Now, I'm no expert on dignity, but I'm fairly civically engaged, enough so that I don't need to be lectured by some condescending doofus with 50 Cent as his ringtone. It was worth a good laugh, and I'm glad that the irony of the situation was not lost on account of my stomach eating itself.

The teacher went on to ask every member of class if he/she believed in God, and I couldn't believe I was being asked the question for the second time that day. Same response. "Um.. no?"

I'm a highly spiritual person, yet simultaneously one of the least religious people I know. I decided that I believe in belief. I believe in the idea of believing in God, the idea of believing in some higher power, the idea that one's self is not quite the epicenter of the universe. Yet, I can't quite convince myself honestly that I can believe things I don't. Maybe I was the only one being honest, but I was the only member of my class with that answer. I can understand just saying yes and being done with it. It's embarrassing at some level to tell someone you don't believe in God, because it carries the connotation that you don't have a rubric of morals to follow, a set of values that guide you. It did make me think, though, about what I really do believe, and if there's more to this whole thing than what appears on the surface.

My most honest answer: I don't know. And I am okay with that. I know that I am at my happiest and must fulfilled when I am able to be loving, engaged, and connected with others. I am at my happiest when I can be generous with my time and energy. I am at my happiest when I am part of something, concrete, bigger than myself.

All in all, I believe in Odin, duh.

Mi No-Cumpleaños

2009-08-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

There's a distinct feeling that accompanies waking up before sunrise. At least for me, I seem to exhibit a type of mindless efficiency, where I am simultaneously coherent and asleep, miserable and enthused. I feel like I'm fighting nature, as though at times when the only available light is artificial, I am fighting against my ancestral DNA, fighting against ancient, more natural times that only allowed humans to function during times of sunlight, and all other activities were shrouded in darkness and impossible. It is ironic that for most of these moments, I am waking to catch an early flight, an even larger perversion of natural intention, in which humans literally sit in chairs that fly though the air at hundreds of miles an hour. In this case though, only for the smaller subversion of an early bus to Santiago, from which we would begin our ascent to Valle Nevado of the Andes Mountains.

My cellphone alarm screamed the opening thirty seconds of Rodrigo y Gabriela's "Tamcun" at 5:00 AM on Friday morning, and I quickly gathered my essentials: ski jacket, gloves, kafia, beanie, banana. I stuffed the contents of the aforementioned list into my Burton rider's pack, and to the untrained eye, it may have appeared like I actually knew what I was doing, that I had actually snowboarded before and was in some way in control of the events later that day. Unfortunately, the reality was that both were very untrue. But, at least my gear was tight.

The bus to Santiago was slow going, and most of the other folks with whom I was riding had forgone conversation in favor of sleep or their ipods. After a two-hour ride, we got a chance to stretch our legs, and switched from bus to a smaller, thinner van with chained tires that would better traverse the thin and icy mountain roads. For the next hour and a half, we slowly climbed the snow-capped Andes on guardrail-less dirt paths that caused my hands to subconsciously grip the arm rests beside my seat with anxious force, as though my forearms would somehow slow the momentum of a van toppling over the ledge. The views, although minorly obscured by clouds, were an incredible dark brown to maroon gradient of the mountainous range behind us.

Valle Nevado was a small English speaking colony in the middle of the Andes Mountains, and the truth of the matter was that the extent of English I heard around me felt foreign. The most disconcerting truth, is that many Latin Americans simply cannot afford the prices of transportation and lift tickets and equipment, and therefore the Andes' ski resorts are dominated by traveling Americans. My natural sensibilities are always affected heavily by apparent issues of social justice, and the entire trip I couldn't shake the thought that, at some level, my participation in snowboarding was somehow unfair. The amount of English spoken was, more than anything else an absence of Spanish, a true reflection of a continent plagued by poverty and inequalities.

On a lighter note, snowboarding made for an incredible afternoon. My first few runs were quite difficult, but once I figured out how to shift my weight from heels to toes without toppling over, I was making complete runs without falling. I found myself becoming bolder every turn, feeling more comfortable riding faster and faster every time. I felt incredibly accomplished by the end of the day, knowing that I spent a day trying something I was scared of and then eight hours later felt excited for my next chance to try it again.

That was Friday. On Sunday morning, I awoke to a surprising scene: my Chilean family members gathering around, hugging and kissing me, and wishing me a very, very happy birthday.

Um? "¿Cúal es la fecha?" "Did I sleep until October?" A number of similarly confusing questions were running through my mind, the point being I was incredibly disoriented.

Apparently, my program had alerted my family that I had a birthday during my stay in Chile, but somehow the dates had been transcribed incorrectly, and the end result was my Chilean family's thinking August 23rd would be a huge celebration. Out of guilt, I had to admit to my family that it wasn't actually my birthday, which at first was confusing and hard to explain, but afterwards was worth a good laugh. We joked, in spanish, about how in "Alice in Wonderland" or "Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas" they celebrate their not-birthdays, or sus no-cumpleaños 364 days a year. We all decided that rather than canceling the feast and freezing the cake until October, we'd all celebrate our no-cumpleaños together, on August 23.

In embarassing and incorrect moments, of which I've had many in the recent weeks, we make ourselves most vulnerable but also most open, to friendship, to family. In my family's mistaking my birthday, although confusing and embarrassing, it was the first moment I felt like part of an actual family, like an actual Chilean. Like any other family, or at least mine at home, our moments of weakness become the points at which we bond, form connections, learn to love. I was touched that, although they had the wrong date, people who were complete strangers three weeks beforehand, who had no idea I even existed on this planet, took the time and energy out of their lives to gather and cook and clean and celebrate with me. When looking back upon this year of travel, this will definitely be a situation I will remember fondly.

All in all, happy no-cumpleaños everyone!

La Sebastiana

2009-08-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

"The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty." - Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda's "La Sebastiana" is a fusion of humility and elegance. Like a line of his poetry where the beautiful emerges from an overwhelming sadness, his home stands high above the dilapidated Valparaíso rooftops, howls of wild and hungry roaming dogs, the dirty streets. After spending time there on Sunday, I began to get a sense of the man Neruda was.

To me, Neruda was so honestly human he seemed to transcend the real, the physical. He wrote from a leather chair dubbed "The Cloud" while watching the lights appear on the coast. He hosted parties in disguise, often changing his disguise multiple times over the course of the evening. He was a man who designed his own fireplace, a man who thought big thoughts, but still relished small pleasures. He was a diplomat and a drinker, and always knew good whisky. He was the type of man who, while having his home searched at the behest of Augosto Pinochet, remarked, "Look around - there's only one thing of danger for you here - poetry."

The home is five floors total, and sprawls upward on thin spiraling staircases flanked by colorful tile mosaics or thick, dark French oils on canvas. Each step was my climbing an ivy vine, where the direction was certainly upward, but I wouldn't be surprised had I needed to quickly divert my path left or right. Every room was different, unexpected, and imperfect, as though Neruda wanted every object in his eclectic home to beg the question, "Why?".

Neruda's made me think of my own. It felt as though I take no ownership in the buildings I inhabit, a doorframe ignored, a lamp-shade unnoticed. Too many of my things are clean and in their place, too many walls are without art. I felt it briefly this summer when I had sanded the paint off a guitar, varnished the wood, and drew a design, but then never followed through.

Neruda's expanded me, made me see and notice things I hadn't seen and noticed before. Mostly, Neruda's made me feel artistic, and bold. I decided at "La Sebastiana" that I want to live in buildings and places that breathe on their own, that make me contemplate the beautiful, that make me ask, "Why?"

All in all, pass me the spackling.

Isabel Allende

2009-08-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

Wearing around the edges, binding thinning, and pages yellowing like coffee-stained teeth, Isabel Allende's "Mi País Inventado" sits buried on a bookshelf in my Chilean family's living room beneath picture frames, silver tea cups. For the first time today, I carefully removed it and began reading, slowly albeit. I opened it with painstaking care as though it were an old bible, more for the fear of tearing the cover off than for fear of angering the deities. Much to my surprise, the inside cover revealed a small, black signature, "Isabel Allende," underlined, written above a quickly drawn single flower.

I ran a finger over the ink, as though to feel if it were a computerized replica, or for some reason, in this ancient book, was fresh, wet ink, as though Allende herself snuck into the house, placed it in some indiscriminate location, and then left. Otherwise, why would a keepsake from the most storied Latin American female literary figure be stuffed beneath "South America on a Shoestring" and a fold-out map of Santiago.

To be honest, I don't know what made me look through their bookshelf. More likely than anything else, I was snooping around, as though through a deceased grandparent's belongings, trying to find signs that signified something important about a life lived.

I was once told, "Everything you need to know about someone you can find on their bookshelf." But now, I'm just confused. What can conclusively be said about my findings? Nothing, really. But what I've decided is this:

I am going to read this book, and the poetry of Pablo Neruda, and the short stories of Gabriela Mistral, and really anything else I can get my hands on. In Spanish. Like anything else, it will be a process for sure, and just reading the first page in "Mi País Inventado" was a tutorial in the use of a Spanish-English dictionary. To make recommendations of authors and poets for me to read, just comment below. What better way to learn a language than with teachers who are, quite literally, those who are the best with it.

Mi Familia Chilena

2009-08-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Granted, there is not much to see and/or do in Olmue, Chile, but I’m proud to say I more than likely did it all. On our final morning, we Gringos woke up early for a hike in “La Campana,” the Chilean National Park in Olmue. The temperature was somewhere in the low to mid-50’s, so even though we were hiking, everyone was in jeans or sweatpants coupled with sweatshirts and fleeces. We had a guide who gave an ecological tour (completely in Spanish) so I was able to scrape together only the more basic details of Chilean flora and fauna. Regardless, the views from the park were incredible – the Chilean Andes as a background to an array of greenery (from evergreens to cacti).

For our last night in Olmue, we decided to go to a karaoke bar we had seen on our walk earlier that morning, and although it appeared closed from the outside at around 11:30 PM, the owner ran out into the street after us to call us inside. We were the only ones at the bar for a good period of time, until a group of Chileans (who all worked as rollers for a cigarette company), joined us. Thus, the revelries began. The “piscola” (whisky and coke, more or less) definitely helped my Spanish, and before long we were all up dancing salsa and joking in Spanish. Plus the exchange rate is bumpin', and I ended up spending no more than $7 or $8 all night.

This morning we left Olmue for Vina del Mar (about an hour’s ride) to meet our Chilean families. Along with everyone else, I was beyond nervous to meet them and feared that my day wouldn’t be filled with awkward silence and unmet needs. Fortunately, my Chilean parents (Claudio Marin y Vivienne Villarreal) were really friendly and assured me that my Spanish was not as bad as I thought (they are, however, horrible liars). They proceeded to take me out for a Chilean cell phone and then took me home for lunch and settling in.

Once we were back to the house, I met Axel and Alex (my Chilean brothers, 20 and 24, respectively) and to avoid the certain confusion and the obvious irony of having 3 boys with essentially the same name, my family has taken to calling me Alexander. I was able to speak and understand well during lunch, and I was able to explain some of the differences between Chilean and American Universities. Unfortunately, during the conversation I used up all of my mental energy, and no longer could quickly translate Spanish to English (and vice versa) in my head. Since then, more of the awkward silences have occurred and “No entiendo” has become my most frequent Spanish phrase.

(Just a note, I've decided to end every entry with the patented end to a Lanakila trip story "All in all, it was a ________ trip." I know these posts are long, so if you don't feel like reading everything I've written, but want a general sense of my demeanor, this is for you.)

All in all, my Chilean family is incredibly friendly.

Love Changes Everything

2009-08-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

I keep a homemade business card in my wallet that reads "Love changes everything". For those of you from the Aloha Camps, surely you must recognize the reference to "Bob's Song (Love Changes Everything)". This year, it has become a motto, sort of. More accurately, it has become a mindset that I've adopted, a way of looking at things, people, and situations, which for me, has yielded transformative results. Instead of looking at uncomfortable and unknown situations with indifference, apathy, frustration, or fear, I try to look at every situation with love. Love for other people, love for language, love for my family, love for myself. So far, it has not steered me wrong.

Today marked the beginning of my yearlong travels, and the first day that it felt like a stretch to take "love" into every situation. Often times today I've found myself embarrassed, lost, or just incorrect, and reminding myself to be loving has helped me begin uncomfortable situations, ask for help, and most importantly, laugh at myself. On my flight I had two very long and incredibly interesting conversations with native Chileans who were extremely friendly and willing to talk about themselves and Chilean customs, religion, and politics. One man spoke of the importance of gaining world perspective in order to evaluate one's own culture. While my most daunting task will be learning to communicate and understand Spanish, it seems as though I'll also have to put forth an effort to encourage Chileans not to speak to me in English.

This morning, as my plane began its final descent into Santiago, the view from the left side of the plane was truly spectacular. The Andes Mountains stood grey against the white accents of frosted snowcaps, beneath an almost fluorescent orange band of sunrise that following closely to successions of peaks and valleys, appearing like the signs of life on an EKG machine. If there were any natural symbol to announce my arrival, I had seen it.

Welcome to "I Don't Necessarily Agree..."

2009-08-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

This year, I will be traveling extensively in Latin America and Europe, and for my friends and family, will be a way for everyone to keep tabs on me and a way to fill everyone in on what I've been doing. If something interests you or you just want to say hi, post back and let me know!