I am the kind of person who loves to lounge outside for hours and hours, days and days in warm weather, a backpack full of paints, a journal, a book, some snacks, and a bicycle laying on its side in the grass, barefoot under a tree, drifting from park to park or patio to patio, cell phone turned off in my pocket. Read until I am bored, and then lazily ride, and sleep under a tree, then go paint by the river, then have a banana, make a rum and coke and have a drink and sleep by the port, go sit in the air conditioned library for an hour, get inspired, go out and ride my bike and write.

But .. it's winter.

Of course, at the onset of winter, I like to hole myself up in my apartment with a list of projects and goals, and meticulously and systematically work on them. This has been a pretty productive winter - I learned a lot of kanji (Chinese symbols used in Japanese writing), read some great books (Tropic of Cancer twice, and 90% through Voyage au bout de la nuit, Journey to the end of the night) and seriously hammered out some paintings. A lot of nights it was a folder full of images to paint from, or an actual list in my notebook of things around the house I wanted to paint or draw. Come home, make some soup, listen to NPR and paint for 2-3 hours. I think I really improved my use of color, drawing, composition, and portrait abilities, consolidated more my vision and ideas. That being said, I am over isolation in the apartment!

I live on the third floor of an old building near the port, relatively empty, in a small town in rural Japan. On nice days, the city is pretty active with people riding bikes, shopping, playing in the parks, etc, but winter is a bit .. dreary.

This weekend was a bit of a bastard! I woke up Sunday morning and it was bright and sunny out, apartment was somewhat warm, and I decided to go out and paint! So I stepped on the balcony .. and it was maybe a bit chilly. So I went inside again to read, but kept looking longingly out the window. That little taste of Spring was making me so restless to go out! Finally, after a few hours of deliberating and half-assedly knocking out some housework, I went out to paint. IT WAS FREEZING! So I sort of mocked myself for being so fickle about weather that was too cold anyways, and I picked up some goodies for dinner and went home to resume painting inside.

All that restlessness left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. After work on Monday it was pretty nice out, so I rode my bike around town for a bit. I picked up two goodies to increase temporary happiness:

struggling through winter, gin and pots

I was bummin' a little riding home from work, but I had this bottle of gin in my backpack, and a houseplant in one arm, riding my bike one handed down a busy busy street. The cars were all stopped and backed up, trapped and mechanically on their way somewhere (?), and it really perked me to feeling free and light, riding home with alcohol and a plant, two elements of very simple enjoyment and happiness. Then my friend was pulling out of the parking lot of a building near mine, and she waved, and I waved, but when I took my other hand off the handlebars I almost wrecked the bike. That is classic, right?

I picked up a small blue notebook for 300 yen at the art store here. The paper is great, absolutely low quality, totally slick and bleached white. The cover is really thin blue cardboard, almost negligible. Within a week or two the cover had ripped off and every page I had written on had come unglued and was falling out of the notebook. I taped the binding, put a bulldog clip on one end, and it now goes with me everywhere I go. It has become really special to me.

moleskine schmoleskine

I like to keep journals to represent periods of my life. I never "complete" a journal by filling it completely. I feel like there comes a point in each period in my life that signifies a major change in outlook and attitude, and that is when I tie a string around the journal and put it in storage. In that way, the journals end when a certain mindset ends, not limited by the physical absence of paper! I have several of these journals, starting from 2006 when I first went to France.

This blue journal is drawings of people and things in trains, coffee shops, and bars. The content is mostly my personal thoughts, retelling events that happened, recording dreams, and also ideas for poetry and songs. If people read from this journal, it will be extremely selective.

I currently have a similar project with the same principle behind my system for journaling. I am working on an album here in Japan, and it is definitive of a period and a mindset. I don't have a set number of songs I want to write -- I am going to continue existing and being as I am, and the songs will continue, and when that period is over, I will tie a string around the album and record what I have created. I am going to play shows with these songs in Columbus, and I may ask a few other musicians to start a band for it. Songs are on piano, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar.

This is a page from my journal that will probably be cryptic to those who read it, but I understand it, and it is extremely indicative of my life at this point. It is so special to me that I took it from my journal and I have it hanging on a wall in my living room.

I'd like to write a bit more about some personal experiences in Japan and not so much my thoughts on my twice a week train ride to Sakanoichi.

Winter has been pretty cold here. Ohio is a hell of a lot colder, but Ohio also has heating systems and insulation in all homes and buildings. I have only been in one building in Japan that had heat or insulation, and that was a nursing home. Let's see, I have worn a winter coat in the classroom for the last month! I immediately thought of some Thoreau inspired civil disobedience, intentionally getting pneumonia and dying in a school, but it's not really my battle .. .. right?

So, with that background, it is much to my delight that it has gradually gotten warmer in February. Saturday it was in the high 40s and completely sunny. I live right on the coast of Kyushu, so I decided to take my single speed beach cruiser (i.e. bicycle) out to uncharted territories. I rode down the coast past the familiar limits of my city. Before I set out, I picked up some chocolate covered peanuts and a quart of milk. Ahh ..

Very nice ride, riding along the coast is very flat. Every mile or so there are small fishing villages and ports. I crested a hill and there was a little path going off into the woods. Intrigued, I parked the bike and followed.

I like to think there was some kind of warning sign on this path, because it was unbelievably unsafe. There was a sidewalk width strip of concrete that went out for about 15-20 feet without any guardrails. On either side was a nearly vertical drop of 40 feet to rocks and the ocean. Creepy! At the end of it the walkway were crumbling stairs, also with on guardrail, that led to a big drop to rocky ocean death. At one point, there were no stairs, but some kind soul tied a rope to a tree so you could sort of climb down. ありがとう to that person! This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but the end of that path is about a 40 foot vertical fall into magical danger.



Just beyond this and to the left were two Buddhist statues, hidden behind a red curtain, red scarves tied around their neck, and candles and incense to burn. I couldn't find a lighter to use. Too bad .. Continued down until I reached what I was after -- a beautiful promontory, 20 feet out into the ocean, surrounded by the ocean with the coast of Kyushu looping around.

Yep. I parked it out there and ate some yummies. Periodically the waves hit the rocks so hard that water bounced up onto me. Really peaceful, warm, ah. After a half hour, I got up to return to my bike. A bit surprised and excited for my return journey:

"Knowledge is a trick in the age of the internet. At any moment, you can become instantly and temporarily knowledgeable on any topic through 3G networks and wikipedia mobile. However, some people have information stored in themselves that they can summon at any time, information they use spontaneously from their being. This is devotion, information that is learned, invited, and accepted into who you are at your core as a person. Information that is felt, perceived, and stored is love. Goods produced and services performed via this love are one's craft in life. Every human being on earth needs a craft."

I wrote this on the train to work one morning. Why the death of Rubik's cube? A student here gave me a sticker with a Rubik's cube on it, one square incorrect. I thought about how it was no longer an engaging puzzle. Why? At one point, there was an intellectual endeavor to understand and deduce how to solve the puzzle. Today, the magic is gone -- solving a Rubik's cube is just a trick you can find on YouTube or other sites. I put the sticker on my watercolor palette -- it is a reminder that painting is my craft, that I have taken into my being information on the properties of painting and picture making, and that the internet does not have "tricks" to understand its workings.

About a month ago I picked up a pourover coffee maker here in Japan. A pourover is slightly similar to drip coffee -- you have a cup with a filter over it, pour water in, coffee goes into cup. I am a bit meticulous in life, mostly regarding things with little to no importance. So, I did a quick research on google about how to make coffee with a pour over. Quantities, tips, etc.

I have had problems with coffee pouring through too slowly, too quickly, etc. So, I have been experimenting with how to fold my filter, how much coffee to put in, etc. One tip on the web was to fold the bottom of your filter. I didn't like doing this because it makes it very flat, and the bottom of my pourover is pointed. Last night I decided not to fold the filter. So, I boil the water, add the coffee, and begin pouring. About 3 seconds in, the filter busts, and all of the coffee grounds pour into my mug. I observed the following timeline:

1 second of confused panic. Where is my coffee going!?

5 seconds of anger and frustration, a knee-jerk "god damnit!"

And since then, an elated feeling of ignorance. I think that we look increasingly to the internet for answers for everything. There are how to websites or guides for, I assume, everything. I feel fairly confident that I could've searched on google "Why do you fold your filter when you make a pour over?" and found some forum or how to with exact reasons you must fold. I think this is damaging to our human intellect. I think our minds are inherently curious, experimental. Quick answers, in any format, teach our minds to be lazy. It is like a welfare state of the mind -- google searches can tell you everything, so you need not experiment. However, 15 or 20 years ago this wasn't an option. I am happy to maintain the human element of ignorance, stupidity, and curiosity in my being. I have before felt so much frustration and sadness in my life for mistakes I had made, "shortcuts" to save money, ideas in music or painting. I now look back and am happy for those things. I think that most, if not all, advances and progress (these terms used lightly) in our lives have been preceded by countless unseen failures, frustrations. We should embrace them because that is how humans have got on for millions of years. From this point on, I will embrace failing through my own ignorance, curiosity, and creativity (!!!) rather than succeeding through the developed artifice of another. Especially through the internet.

A nice snack on the weekend! Ginkgo nuts and a negroni. Ginkgo is a very interesting -- the first line on its wikipedia page says that ginkgo is a "highly unusual non-flowering plant" and regarded as a "living fossil." It is recognizable in fossils from 270 million years ago. Whoa! Anyhow, the trees smell awful, and the nuts have the same toxin as poison ivy/sumac, so it is very irritating to the skin. More poison information! There are cases of seizures and death from overeating ginkgo nuts, even properly cooked. They say you shouldn't eat more than 10 a day, and do not eat them every day. Whoa! One very interesting fact is that when Hiroshima was bombed, four gingko trees within the city had zero damage and still live to this day, almost 70 years later. Aside from the wild history and health risks of eating ginkgo, it supposedly has health benefits when eaten in moderation. The taste is delicious -- maybe a bit between popcorn and peanuts, with a slight burnt taste. You roast the nuts in a shell until they pop, and then pull out a green, soft center to eat. Mmm ~

Poison lunch .. I was eating maybe a bit too much ginkgo, and Sunday I found I had debilitating stomach cramps. Whoa! I am attributing it to either the ginkgo or the negroni intake. Negroni is quite scrumptious -- I only heard of them here in Japan. It is a cocktail made from equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and campari. I replace the sweet vermouth with dry when I make them at home. It is a bit of an acquired taste, as vermouth and especially campari are quite bitter. The word vermouth comes from wormwood, which is an herb that was previously used to flavor it. They are both fortified wines which have herbs and spices steeped in them to add flavor. The flavors compliment the gin that they go with. Really, quite delicious. So, since my stomach death, I am doing a bit of a science experiment .. removing ginkgo from my diet, and then removing negroni from my diet, and seeing which is the culprit. Either way, I don't foresee myself relinquishing either.

This is a non-lethal tasty Japanese food called ochadzuke. It is rice soup with sesame pieces and seaweed. The really interesting and delicious aspect of it is that the soup is really just pure green tea. Whoa! I think this is the Japanese equivalent of coming home drunk from the bar let's get a piece of pizza on the way home. I think it is a common joke that it isn't food, but a drink. Anyhow, a nice snack.I am in a bit of a comfortable routine here, but without the negative connotations of the word. I am really challenging myself as an artist I feel, also taking care of myself on a personal, spiritual, and interpersonal level, though maybe a bit negligent on a caloric level, that is to say, not eating enough. Most evenings look a bit like this, a cup of coffee, negroni (or other unhealthy beverage), some magazines, and miscellaneous painting and drawing implements scattered on the floor, Tom Waits or Cat Power coming through the speakers. Pushing yourself artistically is potentially a slippery slope of hurt feelings and frustration. It is important to detach emotionally from the work and try to view it as a series of studies and practices, which you can analyze objectively to better your work. Bad drawings do not reflect on me as a person, right? No matter what, it is art, it is beautiful when people truly and lovingly devote themselves to developing something, anything, whatever it may be. Especially in affluent society, where goods and feelings are mass produced, consumed, and disregarded, personal devotion to projects takes on a new depth and meaning. For that reason I want to live my life to create and appreciate things that are lovingly created by others. This is not just drawing or painting -- it includes music, a clean house, good clothing, artisan work, alcohol, food.

Kurt Cobain talked about this a lot, a big message in his music. "Use just once and destroy." Nirvana's biggest single ironically was all about this "Smells like Teen Spirit." Teenage angst, anger, and it is marketed as a deodorant called teen spirit. Profound and pervasive emotions marketed as a deodorant! In another song, he talks about "he is the one who knows all our pretty songs and he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun, but he knows not what it means." This refers to his profound message being chewed up and consumed without any understanding by people. This is the reason for his suicide (not sure if I think Courtney did it or not). In a sense, Cobain's later lyrics were about everything being co-opted by a market, creating a sort of mindlessly consuming middle class. Really interesting. The fact that he committed suicide (again, supposedly) reminds me of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. A person who is supporting the world decides to drop it all because the world is ungrateful. The person with the greatest gift takes it away because it is not appreciated. To wrap this up, Cat Power has a beautiful song called "I don't blame you," where she tells Kurt Cobain she doesn't blame him for committing suicide .. saying that it really was hopeless to try to reach that crowd.

The greatest man!

Winter attire! A great acquisition here in Japan, very warm, soft, sexy. We are having some warmer weather these days, which is nice. It is a damn shame I am at work from 8 to 4 Monday through Friday! I hope it persists through the weekend .. I want to loaf around town and candidly drink in public, or write, read, paint, lean and loaf at my ease. These days it gets dark around 5:30, so I am usually in my apartment from 4:30 to the time I go to bed. I think I need to start taking evening walks to ward off neurosis. Then again, small doses of neurosis are quite acceptable!



I picked up this bottle because it was so damn cute. I guess that is good design - compelled me to buy it based solely on the label. I actually despise sweet wine, so it was a bit tough to get it down even. I think it was worse than drinking a coke! Anyhow, it was my companion through several extended jams on keyboard. Now it is thankfully empty and a nice decoration when you walk into my apartment.

My vacation plans for this winter have been a bit all over the place. I have finally decided on two things:

One, I will be visiting my friend Sachi in Osaka, then traveling to Wakayama and potentially Kyoto. We met in France 5 years ago, which is really wild to reconnect after so long a time! Fortunately we have kept in touch since then. Her family lives in Wakayama, which is also a small village. I look forward to seeing how it differs from Usuki. Usuki is on Kyushu island, while Osaka and Wakayama (and most of Japan) is on Honshu. Kyushu is known as the more rural, forested area. Osaka is famous for its cherry blossoms, good shopping (yay!) and takoyaki. Takoyaki, how I love thee! Tako is octopus, and yaki is grilled. However, it is not just grilled octopus! It is like a hushpuppy batter with chunks of tentacle in it, along with spices, herbs, onions. Lots of variations here.

Why am I posting this 20 minutes before my lunch break?

Other plan .. the real deal .. I am in theory getting a traditional style full sleeve in a village near here. Tattoos in Japan have been associated with crime (like every other society on the planet..?), so there is a real taboo for them here. Shops are few and far between. The traditional Japanese full body suits were/are(?) reserved only for the yakuza, Japanese mafia. It is overwhelmingly ironic! Yakuza are open about their affiliations, they register their businesses within their cities and have registered addresses and offices where they work in gambling, prostitution, drug and gun trafficking, as well as money laundering. To further the irony, they no longer get tattoos, because it would associate them with a yakuza image. So, the tattoo association with crime is a bit far fetched, and ridiculous in that crime is publicly known and not identified by tattoos. I digress. Lucky, I found through a friend of a friend a local artist, works entirely from freehand. I will be getting a crane (the bird, not the heavy machinery, though both are appreciated) standing in a river, either in repose, or maybe gobbling up some frogs.

I appreciate the idea of the crane in Taoist thought. It stands on one very thin leg in perfect stillness and repose. The idea is that it is seemingly frail but is solid, delicate, firm, balanced. The Taoists thought that it stood in harmony and meditation for hours on end. I appreciate these virtues! Really beautiful. I actually see them all the time in Usuki.

Summer, where did you go? These days it is becoming quite cold, I sleep in wool socks and a sleeping bag, wrapped in a fleece blanket. Then again, I wear a paper thin t-shirt and cotton booty shorts .. Also, as Japan does not use daylight savings (not sure how I feel about this yet, or if my opinion is even pertinent), it is dark when I get up at 6:15 a.m. Also, I do not have enough time to paint after school these days! It gets dark around 5:30 p.m. I have readjusted my psyche though, and lately I have been completely unloading my creativity in my apartment. Speaking of cold ~ houses (or most buildings, all buildings?) in Japan do not have any type of heating system or insulation. This goes for my house and the schools I teach in, so it is in effect a perpetual feeling of slight chill. Brr! Recent strategy is to shut myself off in one room of my apartment with a fleece blanket, space heater, and a coffee or martini, depending on the time of the day. I have been doing watercolor studies of people from fashion magazines (maybe I will get really good at painting Asians?). Also spending a lot of time curled up on the floor with a pen and a pad, writing lyrics and journal-ing while listening to Common and Pharaoh Monch. I have been playing piano a lot lately, and I am writing some new songs on it. It has been a while. I am rediscovering an aesthetic appropriate to who I am and what I believe in these days. Of course that is all in flux, and even if it differs from my previous musical aesthetic, it does not discredit it. I am quite eager to get an album of songs together. You can email me and I will send you tracks I have finished.



This weekend I may go visit some local temples. It has been a while. When I first got here, I was up and down the brick streets all day, visiting temples, exploring, swearing, and butchering the Japanese language. People often knit or put on these red cloths on the Buddha statues. It is quite beautiful and refreshing. In an urban space where most of the buildings, streets, and sights are gray, it is nice to see splashes of intense red. Red is a very special color in Japanese culture.

These are two of the most famous temples in Usuki. I recently painted a postcard of the latter (who will get it?). It is a three story pagoda. What is a pagoda? Apparently it comes to English from Sanskrit "bhagavad," which means blessing. Think the Bhagavad Gita! A pagoda is any type of tiered tower. They are usually Buddhist and located near a temple. The other main religion here is Shinto, which is unique to Japan. Shin means God, and To (Chinese Tao) means Way, so Shinto is the Way of the Gods. To my knowledge, there is an equal number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Usuki. The religions are very different -- Buddhism does not touch on any Gods or supernatural phenomena in the world, but stresses the nature of existence and life and provides a means of escaping suffering through curbing desires. Shintoism is a much earlier religion that believes in spirits that occupy everything around us .. I have read that there are 40,000 Shinto deities. Shinto shrines are devoted to certain spirits, such as cats, foxes, or other animals. Old trees are often thought to have spirits within them. No pictures of Shinto shrines, but someday soon! There is a really beautiful Shinto shrine near the school that is full of cat charms. Several cats hang out around the shrine, which adds to its allure. I conveniently ignore that people probably put food out for them, and happily smile at the strange mystical charm of these cats to a sacred Shinto shrine.

Here is a visual update from the denizen of a Facebook-free existence. Kyle took this picture on a Nikon film camera in Springfield a few days before I came to Japan. He has a great blog at http://opinionparade.blogspot.com.

I took this picture a few days ago when I thought my hair was cute. Growing it out!

Wow! I see the date of my last post was August 9th, 2011. No excuse really - I have been busy with working and painting, also being a bit of a social butterfly, but I intend on writing more consistently these days.

The weather has become really pretty pleasant here. When I arrived it was quite humid, probably in the 90s everyday, but now it is in the 60s and low 70s, crisp breeze and no humidity. It gets a bit cold at night, but I recently got out my sleeping bag and I am doing just fine! I am a bit intrigued by Japanese housing engineering .. Houses typically do not have central heat or any type of insulation. Like none. It seems like a bit of mismatched priorities to have a phone with 3G access and an apartment with no insulation. Hm! So, the strategy is to thoroughly heat one room of my house and hide away in it. Then again, I am used to Ohio winters with -15 wind chill, living broke as a joke with the thermostat set to 55. I think I will be fine!

Speaking of housing, I moved! My old apartment was expensive, big, and actually quite noisy. I will miss the view however:

My new apartment is a relatively old Japanese style apartment. All rooms (except the kitchen) are tatami mats, which are tightly bound straw. They are actually really comfortable, soft, and warm. The apartment has 3 rooms, a bathroom, kitchen, and balcony. I love having all the space to myself -- I have a music room with my synth and guitar, also notebooks. I have a painting room that opens into my bedroom, so the whole setup feels a bit like a loft. Very open. The biggest perk is that it is about $120 a month (what!?) and about 15 feet from the ocean. Every night I fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing and wake up to the same. It is really quite beautiful. Last night it was raining and I watched thousands of raindrops barraging the ocean under the light of the industrial section of the port. I was a bit worried about tsunamis or bad storms, but I decided that if one comes, I will just get a running start and front flip out my window headfirst into it. I mean, what a way to go out? We are actually really safe here, we have a large island (shikoku) that acts as a sort of barrier for any serious weather coming in. Thanks guys! This is a picture of my new bedroom, kept intentionally minimalist. The lighting is questionable because it is backlit on an overcast day. You get the idea though:

Time is going by quickly. I have been here for almost 4 months. I am learning Japanese decently, I feel like I can hold a decent conversation with people and get around town with no problems. Lately I see 2-3 people I know every time I go out, which is nice. I guess that is how it develops when you live in a small town! I am settling into my typical winter routine .. thermal underwear and big slippers, hoodies and martinis in coffee cups, painting bleak still lifes and looking out the window.

Will write more soon! I have a few themes I want to take up. If interested, I have several new paintings up at www.joshwalden.com. Lastly, ~ big thanks to people who found my blog on wetcanvas and expressed interest. You are THE inspiration to get in gear and start writing again!

Well! I have been a bit busy the past few weeks teaching. It is a blast, but it definitely leaves me tired at the end of the week. I would like to talk a little bit about my weekends.

I LOVE having natural light in my home, so I intentionally don't have any curtains in my apartment. I wake up around 7 or so on days I am not working. I usually take my time waking up -- doing yoga, meditating, having a big breakfast. I then put on some really loud Bowie or Clash and clean my apartment. By that time it is a beautiful, sunny day, the whole city coming to life from the beautiful view near my apartment. Last week, I went down to the port where I painted 2 boats. I then found this idyllic spot:

I went down to the very tip of it, about 3-400 ft. out into the ocean, and just laid on the edge with my feet hanging over. Very idyllic. There are lots of fishermen hanging about, and every now and then you see a little crab walk past. I decided to buy a bottle of gin, and I will mix my own drinks at home, then walk down to this spot to sit in the sun and drink. As a cultural ambassador, I would like to represent to the world that it feels great to lay in the sun near the ocean and have a damned delicious drink. I digress. I sort of dozed off .. upon waking, I had a total hankering for a good coffee. CJ told me Japan has amazing coffee, so I ventured out into Usuki in search of said treasure. I found a small building with some katakana コーヒー, kohii, or coffee. I paid my 300 yen and took a seat on the patio. Within 5 minutes, the staff brought me this ..

Yum! Delicious pourover with some cookies to boot. They then brought me some free Japanese iced tea .. wow. I painted a little street scene from the cafe's patio. By this time, I was getting hungry. 3 paintings, a nap, and one coffee later, it was time to head home for some lunch. I picked up some shrimp straight from the ocean and went home to cook. We have these "fish grillers" built into our stoves .. it is basically a miniature grill that is about 4 inches tall, a foot deep, and 8 inches across. So I coated my shrimp with olive oil, garlic, and chili powder .. et voila:

Really yummy. I went back out for another cup of coffee, this time at the bar Portugla. Not sure how it came to be spelled as such! Anyhow, had another delicious pourover (I was quite decadent that day) and ventured out for one last painting. By then, it was nighttime. I walked home and found this amazing view from my balcony:

Very lucky to be here!

So, this weekend I foresee a repeat. Big breakfast, cleaning and listening to Bowie, pourovers and cookies, sitting, laying, drinking (?) at the port, ahh. Living the DREAM!

The last few weeks I have been sitting in the teacher's office, working on lessons (in theory) and studying teaching methods. A lot of time was spent writing emails, meeting other teachers, and reading about 800 articles about painting and color. Anyhow, summer "vacation" is over, and teaching has begun!

Today i started with my first french lessons. I am teaching English at Usuki high school and French and English at a high school near Oita city. My first classes were in French, very fun! I wrote the lessons at Usuki high school and mailed them to myself, so I could access them on the computer at Higashi Koko to download, print, and deliver! I got to school at 8:30 .. I believe 3 weeks ago I was told that my first day was on Tuesday. Much to my surprise, they informed me that my first class was in 45 minutes, which is incindentally how long it takes to boot up the dinosaur of a computer in the teacher's room. I finally got it started .. and the internet wouldn't work. 30 minutes before class started, with a mountain of accumulated paper and mail on my desk, I had to rewrite the lessons from memory! My head was kind of in a whirl. 9:30 rolled around, I went to the class .. and it was wonderful! My first class was 11th grade, only 4 students. The second class was 12th grade with 6 students. I love the small class sizes -- I can interact with every student every day. I am really going to enjoy the year. No matter how difficult it may seem, I am doing the class in French immersion! I believe that language learning can be delivered completely in the target language, and that it is potentially best for the student to be in that environment. So .. let's do this.

Last week, I did a brief self-introduction to all of the students of Usuki High School. A little two minute speech in Japanese in an assembly type setting. It went well, but my Japanese is definitely pretty rough. After that, I went straight to my first English class. I had a 20 minute self-introduction about myself -- family, hobbies, life in Japan. I thought it went pretty well. After the class, a group of boys came up to me and said thank you. I felt pretty grateful to be here! Until one of the more reambunctious ones asked me the next question "So .. Josh-sensei, how many woman do you associate?" which I think is a poorly translated version of how many women I have been with. I said "uhhh" and disappeared down the hallway. If that is the first comment after the first class, this will be an interesting year!

I wanted to write an entry about one of my favorite parts of town -- the Usuki port. I like ports mainly because of their earnest, sort of surly feel. Murder City Devils has a few songs about ports ("Press Gang" being my favorite, talks about a dead sailor who is hung by the townsfolk on the dock for his drunken behavior), which automatically makes ports a bit more somber and appealing in my book.

I think the port in Usuki is mainly for fishing and timber. There seems to be a pretty big wood processing factory near there, where people transport whole logs as well as chopped up wood -- mulch or sawdust? Here is a photo of a boat being loaded -- I like the green shine of the building behind it.

I have heard from other JETs in the area that there are periodically Russian and Filipino sailors who come into Usuki off the boats. I think that my reality will crumble a bit when I chance upon a few русские человеки walking down this small town in Japan.

I like to visit the port in early evening, it is a pleasant bike ride after work or painting. There are always people jogging or fishing off the docks. They have big 10-15 foot poles, and they use little mesh baskets filled with huge chunks of meat (not sure what kind) and just lower them into the water. They usually have a basketball sized chunk of ground something for bait. I asked a fisherman what it was and he was sort of surly about talking to me, so no luck there. Here are a few pictures of boats:

Another impressive sight, which is fortunately visible from my apartment, are the huge cranes that sit on the horizon, projecting high above the buildings. I think cranes are really amazing -- counterweights of several tons used to lift heavy objects. I think they are geometrically really beautiful -- very rigid and straight, with pretty angles that contrast well with the organic landscape here:

Usuki port, and maybe Oita city as well, are well known for two types of fish. Seki saba and seki ajii. My limited Japanese tells me that seki can mean "stone," but I am not sure in this case. There is some type of warm water stream right off the coast here, and it creates faster waves and currents. The fish there, a type of tuna I think, grow extra big and muscular from swimming in it their whole lives. The fish is caught here and sells for about 2000 yen a plate, which is about $24. I gather that it is known throughout Japan. Maybe one day, if I find myself with some extra money in my pocket, I will give it a shot.

I leave you with a picture of Tsukumishima -- "Moon Watching Island." I apologize in advance for the horizon not being level. It is hard to steady a camera with a touch screen! It is about 2 miles out from the port, and you can apparently camp there. There are boats docked there also. It is the basis for a painting that you can find at www.joshwalden.com.

I jokingly call it onigiri island, because it looks like one of these edible rice balls:

This morning I learned a valuable lesson -- be careful of walking down steep hills in the rain while wearing dress shoes, particularly when walking over metal grates. No details, just a lesson learned.

Anyhow! Last weekend I went to Mie, a village about 20 miles away, for a welcome party and festival. It was my first time taking a bus on my own in Japan .. pretty uneventful. The upside is that I was the only person on it, and it was extremely air conditioned. The downside is that it made so many stops that a 20 mile trip took an hour and 15 minutes. Whoa! So I eventually made it to Mie, where I met a friend at the train station. We had a wonderful dinner at a local shokudo, which is sort of like a traditional Japanese restaurant. Lots of food -- blue cheese salad, miso soup, sashimi, vegetable tempura, roasted eggplant, and lastly, fried ice cream. Whoa! So we all left quite full and went to catch the parade.

Festivals are pretty common in Japan during the summer, I am not sure about the rest of the year. No one I asked really knew the occasion for this festival, but that is OK! It was pretty impressive to see. There were big wooden carts, about 15 feet long, 10 feet high, and maybe 8 feet wide, all on wheels. People were sitting inside of them playing taiko drums (big japanese drums played with thick wooden sticks), while people danced on top of the cart's roofs. Lastly, there were groups of people pushing the carts up and down the area. My favorite part of the evening! The drummers play their instruments really fast, the people on top jump and dance like crazy, and the runners run as fast as they can. When they get going really fast, somebody blows a whistle, and they all jump up and land almost parallel to the ground, feet skidding to a stop, in order to stop the float as quickly as they can. It was really intense! I wasn't unable to get a good picture because it was far away and pretty dark out. The highlight of the evening was when 3 carts were doing it simultaneously, sometimes nearly hitting each other. Really impressive to see, a lot of energy in the air. There was a Korean diplomat at the festival, so there was also some Korean music and dance. Also very beautiful, but I confess that had I not been told it was Korean, there's no way I could've distinguished. Went back and stayed at a friend's place after the parade, only 10 p.m. but quite sleepy.

The next morning a few of us met up and we drove to the top of a mountain that looks over Mie. Here is a picture! If you look sort of to the right off-center, you can see the Pacific ocean near the horizon. The city there is Beppu, which is famous for hot springs.

Quite beautiful. A sleepy car ride back to Oita, where I caught the train to Usuki. The parade was wonderful to see. It made me so happy to be here in Japan! In a few weeks we have the Fire Festival at the Stone Buddhas in Usuki. I like the idea of a fire festival .. sounds so pagan! I will be sure to post about that when the time comes. Until now .. it is 8 hour days in an office and Madonna "You Can Dance" at night, plus wildly colorful watercolor paintings. Wow!

This week I went to an English immersion 3 day summer camp in Yufuin, where students would ideally be in an immersion environment and speak only English for 3 days. There were about 30 ALTs -- Assistant Language Teachers -- and about 190 Japanese students. We stayed in a sort of community center in beautiful Yufuin, Japan. Yufuin is about 1 hour from Oita-shi, surrounded by steep, green mountains on nearly all sides. It has a few famous onsen (hot springs) that attract tourists from Japan and Korea.

I was in charge of a group of 10 girls and 2 boys. At first, they were painfully shy with me and each other. However, by the end of the stay, they were speaking a lot of English among each other and with me. I could tell that the camp meant a lot to them - it was definitely a very special time for all parties involved. I felt very touched to be able to inspire and have a bond with the students like that. Several of them have emailed me about how much fun they had. The last night we had an amazing dance party. We all really incorporated the kids into the dancing, and they had a lot of fun. When the sound system cut out, we kept clapping and stomping, and the dancing never stopped. Amazing energy! I also got the chance to bond with several of the other JETs who live in Oita prefecture, all of whom are within an hour from me. These friendships are important to me and I look forward to being a part of them over the next year. However, after two days of working from 7 am to 10 pm, and then staying up until 2 am with other ALTs, I am completely exhausted! I made it back to Usuki and am still in the process of unwinding. It felt wonderful to be back in my apartment, in the familiar streets of Usuki. I went out for a bike ride and took some pictures of the city (Usuki, not Yufuin):

The castle is about a 5 minute walk from my house, and the skyline picture is taken from on top of that hill. I do not live in that part of the city (ie that skyline area), but I wanted to show the mountains and the sunset. Really, it is a beautiful place.

This weekend is Obon, which is a Buddhist holiday in which spirits of ancestors come back to visit their families, but not in a typical Ghost story sort of way. Last night as I was walking home I saw a few people setting up offerings in graveyards. Tomorrow I am going to a festival in Mie (Bungo no ono), which is a small village about 30 minutes away from Usuki. I will be staying with a few friends there. As for tonight, I am still beat from Yufuin. I will be sweeping and vacuuming my apartment with Skeletal Lamping on full blast, painting some watercolors and drinking ice water in my booty shorts. Living the dream!

On a last note, I recently bought an iPhone, which is SO not me! However, I bought it because it has unlimited data plan, so I am always logged into Skype. So you can call me at any time from Skype and it will be a free unlimited phone call to me. Email me for my Skype username. Bear in mind that from Ohio land there is a 13 hour difference. Subtract 1 from your current time and flip it from AM to PM. Please, no 4 am phone calls! Anyhow, please get in touch, I would absolutely love to talk with you.

It's been about a year since I last wrote in here! Not to say the last year hasn't been eventful, but I suppose blogging about my personal goings-on wasn't a primary concern.

I was somehow chosen as a shortlist (first priority) ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) through the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) program. Sorry for all the acronyms! I think a sentence that has three sets of parentheses must be poorly worded. I began my application in October 2010, I had an interview on March 4th, and I was notified of my status in mid-April. I left Ohio land on July 24th for Tokyo Japan, to begin 3 days of orientations .. I'd like to write about life in Usuki, life in the inaka ("countryside") of Japan, sharing small events, history, and festivals I attend.

Usuki is a city of technically about 30,000 people. However, it is technically a municipality that contains about 7 or 8 (guessing here) smaller towns that are all wrapped around Usuki bay. They are all separated a bit geologically by hills and mountains. I think for ease of government, they consolidated them all under the municipality called Usuki. I live in the central historic part. From my bedroom window I can see the Pacific ocean and Usuki port. The whole island (to my knowledge) is mountainous, lush and green. The mountains descend straight into the ocean, dropping off of cliffs about 15-20 feet high. Really, it is quite beautiful.

I live in the Niouza historical district. Previously, most of Usuki was underwater, and there was a castle on the one hill where the leader lived. All of the streets surrounding it are windy and often have dead ends, as a defense against invaders. I am finally mostly oriented to find my way around, but you will not find any street names or right angles here to orient yourself! Niouza is full of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, and a few samurai houses that are still intact. I feel very fortunate to be living here. Central Usuki is very self sufficient -- fish from the ocean, and good growing seasons and rain in the mountains. I can find just about anything I need here. I am mostly living off of bananas, eggs, miso soup, and 4.5% milk. Yum! Of duh, rice as well.

I am working at two public high schools near here. I will be teaching English alongside another Japanese teacher of English, as well as teaching French on my own at another school (finally using my degree!). The idea is that the presence of a native speaker helps with pronunciation for learners, helps to creative dynamic and engaging lesson plans, and also helps the local English teachers familiarize themselves with pronunciation, rhythm, and idiom. All of the English teachers I have met here have wonderful English.

The climate here is quite hot, but I think it is similar to Ohio. It seems to be in the 80s or 90s every day and pretty humid. The Japanese houses seem to stay very cool in this weather. My house has a great cross breeze, so it is very comfortable, even in the hottest weather. Everyone is telling me that the seasons here are very marked .. hot in summer, crisp and cool in the fall, lots of colorful leaves, cold, snowy winters, and a spring full of cherry blossoms and fresh growth. Really, seems perfect for a painter! And a 10 minute bike ride to a dynamic port? Perfect! I will use this time to mention that I launched a website to share my paintings .. www.joshwalden.com. Enjoy! I will periodically update with paintings from Japan.

For the time being, I am writing lessons/researching teaching in the office. Also, obviously, writing in my blog. I am mainly spending this time to work on my Japanese, familiarize myself with life here, paint a bunch, create a comfortable living space, and focus on my spirituality, mainly through constant yoga and meditation.

The next few days I will be at Yufuin English immersion camp, a 3 day summer camp where Japanese students can be in a setting where (ideally) only English is spoken. I will be working as a camp counselor of sorts, helping with English, and guiding through activities. Other Oita (my prefecture) JETs will be there as well. After that, classes start on August 29th. Until then .. office work! Please check back, as I will be updating periodically. Or frequently. Something.

Well, after 5 days under “consolidated” status, we were FINALLY given

the go ahead to leave our centralized location and return to our

villages. Volunteers from the South are still unable to return due to

instability in the region. All trainees and volunteers from the North

were able to return to their respective villages and resume work. We

were given the news that we could return, and our excitement slowly

built as we hurried to pack, eat, and get in a last minute shower. We

packed 19 people into a marshrutka and drove down roads full of

potholes and reckless drivers, working our way through villages and

the real Kyrgyzstan until we reached our village. At first we were

very talkative and happy on the marshrutka, but we quieted down and

began to appreciate the village life and the mountains that we hadn't

seen in 5 days. The marshrutka dropped us off at our teacher's house,

and we formed a miniature parade as we dispersed throughout the

village to our own homes. I came up to my door as my little brother

was walking out. He lit up when he saw me, and he ran up to me and

shook my hand. I swear he asked me how I was at least 5 times! My

mom and sister came out, and we all expressed how happy we were that I

was back. They conveyed to me that they were sad that I was gone, and

they wondered everyday if I were coming back. I definitely felt very

appreciated! They heated up some tea and laghman (a kyrgyz food,

thick noodles with fried vegetables and meat. They make it vegetarian

for me!). I didn't even have time to unpack before class, we had tea

and chatted for about an hour. I left for language class for 2 hours,

came home and took a nap. I woke up to my apa knocking on my door and

asking me if I wanted a banya. So good! So I took a very relaxing

banya and shaved. When I came back in the house, there was food on

the table. We ate and I sat down with my apa to watch Russian

sitcoms. Anyhow, a perfect welcome back to my village – a nap, a

banya, delicious Kyrgyz food, and hanging out with the fam. I went to

bed early and woke up at 6 30 for my daily yoga and meditation routine

before class. I am so happy to be back! It is hard to believe that 2

or 3 days ago I was doubting if I would be able to come back to the

village. Today was great, after language class I studied with some

PCT friends, and then drew the mountains from our front yard. I ate

dinner and then went out to play soccer with some neighborhood boys.

The field was muddy and full of rocks, the goalposts were big chunks

of concrete, and it was so dark you could barely see the ball or other

players. It was a good time! Tomorrow we go to our hub, where we

will receive our last 4 shots (I will have received 13 in total since

I've been here!) and buy cell phones. We have only been apart for 2

days, but I already look forward to seeing other PCTs (Peace Corps

Trainees). Lastly, we will discover next week where our permanent

site placement is. There may be a bit of a delay, as they are

currently not sending any volunteers to the South. I am just excited

to find out where I am going! There are two areas in particular that

interest me:

–Naryn. It is the mountain oblast (province), very high altitude,

lots of snow, very epic. It is considered the most “Kyrgyz” oblast,

the home of traditional Kyrgyz culture. I am attracted to the

extremeness of the location and to the isolation. Plus, you don't

often get the chance to live in the second highest mountain range in

the world! Growing up in Ohio, riding my bike through -20 degree wind

chill, and living in a house with a thermostat set on 48 has really

primed me for the cold. The only turnoff for me is that there are

very few vegetables available in the winter, and people are known for

eating basically meat and potatoes throughout the winter. Ouch. The

capital of the oblast is Naryn city, which I believe has a population

of around 6 to 8,000.

–Talas. Talas is considered the most hospitable oblast. It is up in

the hills, but not as mountainous as Naryn. I am not sure how the

Kyrgyz of Talas could be any friendlier than the host families in our

village! They are so kind to us here. Talas also has very cold

winters and short summers, and I believe they may have a bit more

vegetables throughout the winter.

I have a feeling I will get placed in Naryn. Most volunteers try to

get placed by Ysyk Kol (the lake), and Naryn is considered a bit

daunting. Maybe I am shooting myself in the foot. Today in our

classwork we were reading the bus schedule between towns. One of the

towns was called Kara Balta, which translates to Black Hammer. I

totally wanna live in a town with a name like that!

4/22/2010 Ak Jol

Life in the village is good, and I feel happy to be here. Last week

we had elections for TAC (Trainee Advisory Committee), which is a

group of 7 that acts as a liaison between Peace Corps Trainees and

Peace Corps Staff. I wasn't going to run for the office, but someone

in my village nominated me, and I actually ended up getting the

position! I was really flattered and appreciative that someone

actually nominated me, and furthermore that I won. I will meet with

Peace Corps staff once a week to talk about ways to better PST (Pre

Service Training). Trainees apparently have a substantial voice in

PST, so I am excited to facilitate in this process. Other big news is

that next week we have our first LPI, which is some type of language

exam. There are a total of 3 levels (beginner, intermediate,

advanced) each with 3 tiers (low, medium, and high). A lot of host

families are really encouraging their trainees to get an advanced

score, which is apparently pretty difficult. I am shooting for it

though!

The schedule here is definitely intense, and the initial charm of

being here is starting to wear off. We generally have a combination

of language, technical, or cultural training about 8 hours a day, 6

days a week. The past few days have been long, with language

training, cultural session, TAC meetings, and technical sessions. It

is a bit daunting to think that I have 6 more weeks of this before I

am sworn in as a volunteer. Additionally, we will arrive to our

permanent sites in early summer, during summer break. We will need to

be very proactive in order to stay busy. It is a good time to get to

know our communities and local schools. I will be working as a

Teacher Trainer, or Team Teacher, in a rural village. I will

hopefully be integrating new teaching methods into schools, which is a

sustainable alternative to simply teaching myself. Every Team Teacher

has a counterpart, whom we will meet when we arrive to our permanent

sites. We can begin to work on strategies during the summer. I also

hope to start a free drawing workshop. I plan on having some type of

studio, with models and times to meet, as well as “homework”

assignments for people to work on outside of the workshop. Getting

back into drawing and painting has had a hugely positive effect on my

life in the past year, and I hope that I can share that passion with

others and hopefully inspire them in some way. I am thinking of other

projects, but for the time being my main focus is a drawing club. I

am sure that it will be plenty once school starts – teacher training,

classroom help, and drawing workshops. Plus we have to squeeze in

some social life there too!

Today we had our first “Active Practicum” (Peace Corps uses the

weirdest terminology. Does that really need to be in Latin?), where

our group of TEFL volunteers designed a lesson plan with a local

teacher, then taught to a class. We all taught in pairs to 8

different classes from 9 am to noon today. When we weren't teaching,

we observed others' teaching methods. Everyone did such a great job

today, I was so proud of my group! We have all been through a lot

together already – staging in Philadelphia, 22 hours of travel to

Kyrgyzstan, Ysyk Kol hotel, consolidation, language learning stress,

etc. Long story short, I feel very close to these people and I felt

so happy to be a part of this group. Today was definitely a really

exciting indicator of the future. We will continue teaching one class

a week for the next 6 weeks, while also focusing on classes and

technical training. My current challenge is to stay positive through

these long days. And to beat Q-Bert 3 on SNES.

One last note, a few of us volunteers shaved our beards before coming

to Kyrgyzstan. I saw an old picture of myself at my cousin's wedding.

I had a pretty decent beard, and I totally got nostalgiac. I talked

to a few guys here, and we are starting a beard pact. There are a

handful of us who are starting to grow beards again. It is going to

be epic when we all start showing up to meetings with our beautiful

bearded selves!

4/27/2010

This weekend we went hiking up the foothills of the Tien Shan

mountains. The foothills are really green, and most of the village

animals graze there during the day. We walked about a mile out of the

village and worked our way up the hills. There is a big graveyard

just outside of town that we walked past. It has Russian, German, and

Kyrgyz graves from the Soviet Union. A lot of the graves were from

the mid 1880's. The hills were really tall and steep, it was

definitely a bit tiresome to work through them. We could see all of

the local villages from the top, which was cool to see. Our town is a

lot smaller than we thought! I snuck off a bit from the group and

walked up a steep ridge. On the left side there was a big gorge with

water running through it. There were about 300 or 400 sheep and goats

grazing. Some of the goats had horns 10-12” long, and others were

jumping on rocks or across the gorge. Eventually I disappeared from

the sight of our supervisors, and it wasn't long before my cell phone

started ringing. We took our time going back down the hills, looking

at graveyards and talking to a few shepherds. I came home tired and a

bit sunburnt. I had a bite to eat with the family and passed out in

my bed.

We have a weekly hub meeting, where all language groups meet at a central location for meetings, technical and medical sessions. We were at our session last week when a supervisor broke the news that there was large scale protesting across the country, and that we had to return to our villages and stay in our homes for the evening. A bit panicked, we quickly got our 4 shots (ow!) and headed home. Once home, our LCFs called and told us that we were to stay home the next day. I was a bit feverish and delirious from my shots, so this was all seemed very scary to me. The first night we were on standfast (i.e. staying in our houses), I heard men shouting in the village (probably unrelated) and my mom was receiving a lot of phone calls. I was delirious in my sleeping bag, alternating between calm and severe adrenaline! We were in a language class Friday when our teacher got a phone call from Peaec Corps. She told us to pack our laptops, passports, and clothing for 2 days in a bag and to be back at her house at 1 to leave the village. There was a lot of speculation among volunteers, as some had seen news, some had called home, some had talked to their host families. Walking back to the classroom, I felt a tension in the village, which may have been my imagination. Some people seemed sad, some scared, some indifferent. I am sure it is a very complicated time for everyone. We left the village feeling very tense and eventually arrived at an unnamed central location, where we have spent the last 24 hours. Most PCVs, PC staff, and all PSTs are here. We receive information on the political situation periodically throughout the day. The rest of the time, we have language and culture classes. Most of us are too exhausted to take much away from the classes, but it is good to have some kind of schedule. Last night was awful cold where I slept, and all I had was a single comforter. I went to bed in my underwear, then woke up around 3 because it was so cold. I got fully dressed, wrapped my fleece around my legs, a towel around my chest, then wrapped up in a burrito in the comforter, and curled up in a ball. I was warm, but horribly uncomfortable! 8 o clock definitely came very early this morning. At this point, we are remaining at this undisclosed location (I feel so important!) until further notice. There is a slight chance that we may be sent back to the USA (there is a 4 step system, and we are on the 3rd step, 4th being evacuation). Our tentative plan is to return to our villages on Monday, but nothing is certain. I was sad packing my bags again, and my host mom seemed sad to see me go. My brothers were at school, so I didn't get to say goodbye to them. I really hope that I will get to see them again soon!

For the time being, the situation seems stable, although I confess that I am receiving limited information. I am safe, eating well, sleeping poorly, and listening to constant rotation of Danzig and Aesop Rock. That means I am doing AWESOME! This is a fun experiment! I really had to feel as though I were packing my essentials in a backpack, the bare items that I would take with me if I could. Ready for the breakdown?

Camera

Watercolor paints (and brushes!)

Journals (sketch and regular)

Walden by Thoreau

Patchouli oil, so I smell nice

no change of clothes

The worst part of this whole process was when we had an emergency situation where we were potentially being evacuated, and we weren't allowed to return for our bags. Long story short, pick the most important objects in your life, put them in a bag, and then say goodbye to it!

I will post more updates when I am capable. I will not be writing any personal judgments, critiques, or opinions of what is going on. I will also be intentionally minimal in describing what I see going on around me. In these upcoming days, my blog will mostly serve as information for the wellbeing and current situation of the Peace Corps program in Kyrgyzstan.

hey! first off, just want to say that i am safe! all peace corps staff, volunteers, and trainees are in a safe, central location (which I cannot reveal. I feel so incognito). We are meeting in 20 minutes to discuss our next course of action. For the time being, all PC staff are safe. There are food shortages in some parts of the country, and there is a day of mourning tomorrow. I typed a blog entry from my house, and I will copy and paste it here. I will write details about my post revolution experience in the upcoming days. Until then .. enjoy!

4/3/2010

The matching ceremony was really fun. We had a bit of a hectic morning packing our bags and loading up a cargo truck and two buses, but eventually hit the road on time. The ceremy was in a smaller city, and we joked and reflected during our hour bus ride. I had basically forgotten about the ceremony when the bus came to a stop and I saw several Kyrgyz looking excitedly at our buses. We slowly cleaned up and stepped out of the bus to enter the gym. Inside, Peace Corps had set up 8 or 9 different tables, each with a village name written in Cyrillic letters. Our LCFs (Language and culture facilitators. A fancy term for teacher) gave us a slip of paper with our host mother's name on it. We made our way to a gym where some Peace Corps staff made speeches in 3 languages – Russian, Kyrgyz, and English. All of the volunteers sat on the right side of the gym, while the host families sat on the left. We excitedly scanned the opposite sections to scope out our potential host families. Eventually they called my village, which was one of the larger (15 trainees) and we made our way to the stage. I was the 2nd to last person to find my host mother. We left the gym and grabbed some snacks from our table. The Kyrgyz are very generous people – I had cookies, a sandwich, water, and a Fanta in my hand, and my apa (mother) was trying to hand me an apple. Wow! We loaded up my luggage into a taxi and took the bumpy road to my PST (pre service training) village. I was so happy and proud to see fellow trainees getting into the taxis with their new families. Everyone looked so happy and optimistic. I came home to another spread on the table. I met Yrys and Timur, aged 12 and 11, my new brothers. I also have 2 sisters, Aizat and Aqilet. My mom's name is Raya. There were a lot of warnings about big meat spreads at these meals, as well as excessive drinking of vodka. As a vegetarian, I was a bit worried about the meat thing. I was ready for a shot or two though! I explained to my host mother that I was a vegetarian after she offered me some sausage, and everything was fine. After the meal, I unpacked and relaxed a little in my room. It feels great to have my own space and to have everything organized. It feels like I've been living in temporary situations forever.

The village here is noticeably poor – economically speaking. The roads have holes and piles of dirt or rocks in them, fences are made of roofing, old doors, or mud bricks. Most houses do not have indoor plumbing, and there is always an assortment of dogs, chickens, donkeys, cows, sheep and horses in the street. Most houses have an outdoor sink, an outhouse, and a banya (I will explain later). My house has 4 rooms – two bedrooms, a dining room, and a living room. The only furniture is a dining room table, a couch in the living room, and a bed and table in my room. There are beautiful rugs on the floor and hung on the wall. My brothers sleep on a mat in one room, my mother sleeps on the couch, and I sleep in a bed in my room. I actually feel a bit uncomfortable taking my own room and sleeping on a bed, but everyone says that the tradition here dictates that guests should receive the most comfort. .. Still! I feel bad.

Having just said that the village is economically poor, I feel that it has an incredible cultural and social richness. The courtesy and generosity of the people here is beyond belief. The culture of “guesting” is very strong here. It is not uncommon for a family to go out and visit another house, where the family will serve them tea and insist they stay for dinner. This repeats throughout the evening, with families visiting several other families. A few nights ago, another trainee stopped by my house with her sister to play badminton with me (hah!). My apa quickly put on some boiling water, and came out when it was finished to invite us to tea. “Chai ich” means “Have some tea,” and you hear it about 50 times a day here! Deborah, the other trainee, as well as her sister, Adina, came in and had tea with my family. Much to our surprise, Raya apa and Aizat (my sister) pulled out two homemade pizzas from the oven. They were a bit shy, saying that the pizzas weren't like the ones in America. However, Deborah and I were really happy to eat some familiar food! Deborah had to leave for dinner at her house, but her sister insisted that we come with. So Raya apa, Deborah, Adina and I went to their house down the street. We played more badminton until Gulbara (Deborah's apa) came to the steps asking, “chai ich?” We went inside, where we were served tea and orocho (?) which is a very thin, oily bread with cabbage, onion, and pepper inside. We left the house to walk home, when we ran into another trainee and his apa. She insisted we come over for tea, so we went to another house for tea. By this time it was dark, and we decided to head home. Much to our surprise, Aizat had prepared a third dinner for us. To really illustrate the kindness of the Kyrgyz, I was standing and watching Timur and Adina play badminton. I sat down on the steps to relax a little, and Adina quickly noticed, immediately stopped playing, and went to the shed to get me a fur to sit on. The people here truly want to do their best to make you comfortable. And caffeinated.

The village has been out of water for about 3 days, and last night there were donkey drawn carts delivering water from a neighboring village. Saturday is an important day here – laundry and banya! A banya is a traditional Kyrgyz bath. I was looking forward to it, as I was a bit dirty. My apa showed me how to clean my clothes in a metal basin without a washboard. It was fun, and she said I did a good job. I totally have a new respect for washing machines. She explained to me that since I was grown up, I had to wash my own underwear. Hah! I truly believe that the wealthy or privileged would do well to slow down their lives and get in touch with the earth and with real, daily life. We automate and facilitate, rushing through life and seeking convenience, and spend all of our gained free time in front of screens, whether it be a computer, television, or cell phone. Or some weird hybrid that fits in your pocket. Anyhow, after we hung my clothes to dry, I went to the banya. It is a concrete room with a wood burning stove in one corner and a 55 gallon barrel in another. Water is boiled on the stove, which makes the room very steamy. Smoke from the fire gives off a great aroma. The 55 gallon barrel is filled with warm water, and you mix the warm water with the boiling water to an appropriate temperature in a tub in the middle. You then get naked and poor hot water over yourself in a hot, steamy, room. It's almost like a sauna, while dumping hot water over yourself. Amazing. Unfortunately the fire went out and I got a little cold, but they said that next week's will be better. I was just happy that my hair wasn't greasy and my fingernails weren't caked with dirt. My clothes are drying and I've been clean and bundled up in warm clothes all day.

Just a bit about my daily schedule! I wake up at 6 30 am, do some basic yoga and meditate, and then go out to have breakfast with my apa. We have chickens, two dogs, and a cow. Every morning she milks the cow, sets the milk to boil, and walks the cow to the mountains to graze. By the time I am ready for breakfast, she has the food, boiled milk, and tea ready. It is not uncommon for her to gather eggs in the morning and fry them for my breakfast. In the US, I never drank milk or ate eggs for ethical, ecological, spiritual, and health reasons. I feel fine consuming these products here, except for health. I still think eggs and dairy are total cholesterol bombs. Anyhow, I watch my mom milk the cow, and I see that it totally doesn't care. The chickens walk around the yard all day, making weird noises and picking at the ground. After I have breakfast, we meet up with other trainees and their apas, and walk to another house where we have 4 hours of language class. Sometimes it is tough to think about vowel harmony, voiced and voiceless consonants, infixation, suffixes, and vocabulary at 8 in the morning. Putting together words like Charykbuysungbu just doesn't come together that well in the morning. After our language class is finished, the five of us students meet up with the two other language groups (a total of 15) and have a large lunch at one of the host family's house, which alternates every day. The apas are in competition to see who will make the best lunch. We always walk into a long table, stacked with nuts, fruits, bread, plav (a rice dish), among others. After eating, we leave for home. My brothers are always waiting for me outside to walk home with me. We get home around 2, and I will typically play with my brothers for a half hour or so, then come to my room to relax a little. I spend the rest of the day reading, drawing, and practicing Kyrgyz. We usually visit, or have visitors, every evening. I write letters every night from around 10 to 11 pm. I am going to go socialize, as it is getting late, and then head to bed. Tomorrow is sunday, our day off! I plan on working on a painting (ironic that I paint watercolor and the village is out of water), watching a movie, and hanging out with other trainees. So long!

4/6/2010

I must've been tired, because I slept in until 11:30 on Sunday! Not entirely my fault, I get up everyday at 6:30. Plus my alarm doesn't work, and my apa didn't want to wake me up on my only day off. Anyhow, she knocked on the door at 11:30 and invited me to tea. I went out into the dining room, still feeling very much out of it. My little brother asked me if I wanted to play with him after breakfast. I figured it'd be a great way to wake up, so I agreed. 4 cups of tea later, I was ready! So I went outside, where Timur had drawn a large circle on the ground with two lines about 2 feet outside of it. He went to the garage and came running back with a handful of .. sheep vertebrae! This is a traditional Kyrgyz game of which I had no idea. It is actually really fun. Here is how to play (it is similar to curling, or marbles) .. you set up 5 vertebrae in a line in the middle of the circle. Each player stands on the lines outside of the circle and takes turning throwing a vertebrae (each player has one, 7 all in all) at the line of bones in the middle. The object is to knock the bones out of the circle. If you do so, you throw again from wherever your bone landed. If you hit a bone, but don't knock it out of the ring, your opponent gets to stand inside the circle and throw. The winner is whoever knocks out the most bones. Awesome.

Kyrgyz language classes are going well. I am starting to get into a routine here, which is nice. I feel stable, and I know my way around the city pretty well. I have good friends here, and I am learning a lot everyday. I have definitely come close to some of the volunteers in this village. A few of us have really opened up to each other about our personal fears, concerns, and hopes. Living in a situation like this really pulls people together. I am excited that these are people I will probably be friends with well after Peace Corps. We began our technical training (i.e. TEFL, teaching english as a foreign language) classes today at the local school. The school is full of paintings and writings of traditional Kyrgyz culture. The students are cute and mostly happy to see us. We sat in on some classes, which was really entertaining. I sat in on a class full of 8 or 9 year olds, it was surreal to hear them sing bingo in this monumental soviet school building. Wow! The school didn't have any heat or lights on, so it was a bit cold, and some hallways were straight up dark. It felt more like I was sneaking into an abandoned school than sitting in on classes. The bathroom was a brick building outside the school, with a concrete floor and 8 or 9 holes around the perimeter. The holes were about a foot deep and connected underground. It definitely smelled a bit, and the floor was .. questionable. I have heard some good bathroom stories, none of which I will repeat on this blog. Write me for details. Anyways, about the school, next week we are teaching with a local teacher as a practice. I look forward to it!

We had tushqu tamaq (lunch) at my house today. I was so proud of my mom and sister's cooking and decoration! Our house is definitely on the small side, and I was surprised at how well everything worked out. My little brothers went out yesterday and harvested a bag of walnuts. They worked for 3 hours last night with a pair of pliers and a rock, cracking the walnuts and filling up a bowl for lunch today. My mom made oromo, which is a really good local dish. A dough is spread paper thin in a circle, with about a 2 1/2” diameter. Chopped up potatos, carrots, onions, oil, and spices are sprinkled inside. It is then rolled up, arranged in a circle, baked and cut like a pie. Yum! Apa also made buluchu, which are like little turnover rolls without any filling, only light sugar. They are so good, I confess that I probably ate 5 of them at lunch! I sat beside Aizat, who was pouring tea for people. It was a really nice time.

Tomorrow is the first time that we are going to our Hub site. There are 70 volunteers distributed throughout about 8 villages, and we meet once a week as a group to have meetings, get shots, and do other official things. I am very excited to see some of my friends that I haven't seen since the hotel. Plus, we will be able to get cell phones tomorrow! I may wait until Saturday when we go to Bishkek, as they may have a bigger selection. I am really not in too big of a rush to get one. You can get a plan that can call internationally, calling the US is about 8 cents a minute. A lot of folks want cell phones because you can use them to get on the internet. I am doing fine without it! I am plenty busy with Kyrgyz language lessons, learning teaching methodology, drinking tea and throwing sheep bones in our backyard. Plus I dug into my SNES rom folder (i.e. Super Nintendo games that I can play on my computer) and I am totally hooked on Donkey Kong. Don't judge, you gotta take care of yourself! I have done some good value sketches of local scenes, which I will definitely turn into paintings at a later date. I also am feeling inspiration for songwriting. For now I am going to study and head to bed, tomorrow we are getting on a marshrutka at 8 am for our hub site. A marshrutka is basically a sort of arbitrary bus, that drives around the city and yells out destinations. You get on, ride around, and yell when you want off. I hear they are crazy, so I am excited to try it out.

Well! The last week has been a bit crazy. I packed all of my bags and left Columbus for the Peace Corps staging in Philadelphia on March 26th. After a few days of informative sessions and morale boosters, we boarded a bus for JFK airport, and then a plane to Istanbul. I luckily slept for most of the 10 hour flight, and I woke up at 9 am at the Istanbul airport feeling very in tune with the sleep schedule. We paid $20 for a 30 day visa and got a cab for about $8 to the Blue Mosque. It was phenemonal! The Sea of Marmara (I think) was to our right, and we could see all kinds of cruise ships and tankers. We wound through hectic Istanbul traffic and eventually made it to the mosque, which is facing the Hagia Sophia (spelling?) and near a few large bazaars. We went into the blue mosque, which was very cool in the warm Turkish spring. Several people were outside the mosque to answer our questions and to inform us about expected behavior and etiquette. After taking off our shoes, we went into the main room. It reminded me a lot of a Catholic cathedral that you see all over Western Europe, but the images were all Islamic geometry. In orthodox Islam, recreating a figure in art is considered an act of creation and thus an affront to the creative powers of God. The Muslim artists focused on intricate geometric patterns and complex calligraphy. The mosque was beautiful! We left when the prayers started, and walked around the Hagia Sophia, a park, and a small bazaar area. The Turkish were very friendly people, and the city seemed relaxed. It was very diverse, full of Africans, Europeans, Indians, and Asians. Anyhow, after visiting the mosques, people split up to look at shopping or to eat. I was wandering around and a Turkish man stopped me and told me (in English) he really liked my tattoos. We chatted for 10 minutes about Turkey, the US (his sister lives and works in Ohio, where he is visiting this summer! Beaver Creek, funny, right?). He invited me to the roof of his cafe to have a Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee is brewed without a filter – sugar and coffee grounds are boiled in the water. I sat down with the drink and looked out over the Black Sea, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque. There are minarets (where the Muslims call to prayer) all over the skyline. Shortly after I sat down, all of the minarets erupted in singing, calling Muslims to prayer. It was really impressive! I sat back in the sun and enjoyed the moment. We only had 2 hours in the city, so we caught our cab back to the airport for our flight to Bishkek. The flight with Turkish Airlines was very nice. It was only 5 hours (comparatively short) but felt long as we were all anxious to get to our host country. We landed at the airport at 1 in the morning, and slowly trickled through customs and passport control. Peace Corps has this tradition of giving each program/year a specific piece of colored yarn to mark all baggage with. So we got to the airport and grabbed every bag that had silver yarn on it, knowing it was one of ours. Peace Corps had 2 buses and a cargo van outside to transport our luggage and us to a hotel outside the city. A half hour later we were in front of a large gated marble hotel surrounded by empty fountains and statues. Inside, most of the lights were off and there was no heat on. The clerk was laying on a couch under a blanket, smoking and watching Russian pop music videos. We finally got checked in and carried our bags up the 5 or 6 flights of stairs to our rooms. My roommates Craig, Denis, and I got to bed around 5:30 am. The food here is pretty rich. There is typically a meat (sheep, lamb, ?) involved in any dish. Every morning we have a fermented milk drink which is similar to buttermilk. There is black tea served all day, which is a nice refresher. There is no heat and the day of classes can be tiresome. Our schedule here has been pretty tight. We have breakfast from 7 to 8, and then technical, safety, or logistic classes from 8 to 1, when we stop for a tea break. We then have 2 more hours of classes and then have lunch at 3. We have language classes from 4 to 6, and then dinner until 7. Today some friends of mine came up to our room to play guitar and relax a little. I have met some truly great people here. Tomorrow we are going to Bishkek (the capital) to buy flowers for our host families, as well as connect to the internet or buy any items we forgot to pack. When we get back, we leave for our Host Family Matching Ceremony! There are 70 volunteers, and 70 host families expecting us. We will separate into our 3 sectors (health, small businesss development, and teacher training) to facilitate finding our families. They have our names, we have theirs, and we all rush around to find our counterparts. There will supposedly be a big crowd to watch. We will be with our host families in small villages within a close radius for the next 8 weeks. We will have 4 hours of language classes a day, and an assortment of cultural classes and technical training mixed throughout. There will be anywhere from 8 to 15 volunteers in any village. Every wednesday we converge in a central site for seminars and meetings. We also perform a large community service every Saturday. I believe it is called sebodneek, which is a Soviet tradition. This week we are going to an orphanage. At the end of our 8 weeks we will leave for a permanent host site, where we will stay with a new host family and begin work. That's not really on my mind, I'm more excited to meet the host family tomorrow! It will be my first time settling down for a while, and I'm eager to unpack my bag and have some sort of order. If you have any questions about my experience or about the country, please write! It may take me a while to respond, but it would be nice to be in touch.

this is my last blog entry that i will write from spain. i finished up a few week's work in sabadell, mainly to make enough money to pay for a round trip train ticket to murcia. said my goodbyes, dropped my things off at my friend marta's, and hit the road for an 8 hour train ride to murcia. ow. anyhow, spent a week in murcia, which is in very southeast spain. my friend veronica and her boyfriend picked me up at the train station, and we went out for drinks. since veronica had classes, i spent a few days in the downtown, drawing and walking around. mariano (her boyfriend) showed me around one day, which was very nice. i was most impressed by 3 things in murcia:

- el río segura. really pretty name, means like "the sure one"- the cathedral has a giant stone chain around one if its towers. if you look closely, there are no cuts or splices in its construction, so it seems like the entire chain was carved out of one big rock. wow! the local rumor is that the engineer was buried inside the wall so he wouldn't tell anyone how it was built. urban legend, i'm sure!- festival of the sardine .. every year, people make a giant paper maché sardine and parade it around the town before they drunkenly set it on fire. lots of fireworks, alcoholics, and creepy costumes with horns and religious icons. totally pagan.

i was totally unimpressed by 1 thing in murcia, their bloody marys. skimpin on the vodka, come on!

a bit of a strange meditation on time and distance while i was in murcia .. i had been there 2 summers ago, and i kept looking around for old friends in the streets while i was drawing. even though i knew they weren't there, or weren't coming, i instinctively kept turning my head up to find them. the sad part, is that their "roles" in the city seem to have been replaced by others. my friend alej, from rumania, used to live in the park floridablanca .. i remember seeing him there, meeting his friends, etc. i went back to draw some of the trees in the park, and i walked around 2 or 3 times looking for him. the sad part is that there were other homeless immigrants there, and it just made things seem so finite and replaceable.

came back up to tarragona, a significantly shorter train ride, and walked to celia's in the rain. sat down under my umbrella in a door stoop and listened to leonard cohen .. very nice in the rain, humbling and melancholy. celia and all of her friends are 6th year med students (bravo!) and this is their finals week, so i'm a bit on my own. as usual, i'm out in the streets drawing, reading, and playing music. these days i'm doing about 2 or 3 drawings a day, either in pencil, or in charcoal or sanguine on colored paper. today i drew a very sad, melancholy boat in the sea, the cabin was about the size of a small closet. i have my return ticket for january 22nd, where my dad will pick me up in atlanta. spend a few with him, working on his house, a potential trip to jamaica (yes!!), and then up to ohio.

ive learned a lot here during my stay in spain. of course, i wanted to visit friends, practice my spanish, work with emaús here in sabadell, enjoy the weather, etc. however, i also wanted to prime myself for the upcoming 2 years in peace corps, the solitude, regrets, hopes, etc that i will face in the kyrgyz republic. i learned a lot about solidariy with the immigrants with whom i was living and the down and outs i sometimes met in the street while i was drawing. small acts of kindness that can mean a lot to someone. someone here told me that what he's doing doesn't matter, but why he is doing it. there may be some validity in that. one of the philosophies in the emaús house is that when confronted by the suffering of others, you may feel so much injustice in the situation that their suffering becomes your suffering, and you work together to overcome it. in my experiences with others' suffering here (and my own at times), i've felt moved by this ideology, though it may have been only small amounts. the first time i went overseas, i was a bit unsure of how life would be when i got home, i wasn't sure of how i'd "changed" in my time away. i feel that when you leave your comfort zone for an extended period of time, there are two variables changed -- you, and your environment. when you return to a comfortable environment, there is only one variable remaining -- you -- and you can observe more accurately changes in your perspective or attitude. this last step awaits me across the atlantic ocean! see you soon.

well, a few weeks cj visited me here in sabadell. we went on a mini tour of spain, mainly focusing on andalucía. we went through barcelona, tarragona, granada, sevilla, cordoba, and madrid. we saw a lot of historically important areas and monuments, as well as a unique culture in spain. we missed a bus in madrid and ended up staying there for christmas. we walked up and down the main streets and plazas, looking at the lights and people watching. we went to a vegan buffet (heaven on earth) and then relaxed in the room, drawing, etc. much to my sadness and chagrin, she left a week ago. i was pretty down, but now im back in the swing of things here in sabadell. picked up some new media to work with, sanguine, charcoal, and white chalk. so far ive done a portrait, a still life, and drawn 3 buildings here in sabadell and in torrelles de llobregat. its a lot quicker than pencil, but seems to lack a bit in details. it stands out very strongly on the paper, which i like. overall, i may prefer it as a medium for quick street drawings. a bit of history on sanguine, which i find very interesting! it is a bit like charcoal, but a rusty, red color. its name comes from the latin word for blood, sang. it was popular in europe during the renaissance (i believe) for portraits, when people believed that 4 humors determined human health. a red, "ruddy" countenance meant that someone had a hearty, healthy disposition. so, sanguine, blood red, was used as a color for portraiture. interesting! i had a bit of a blood ritual with it during my third drawing. i have a big old fat sanguine pencil which won't fit in a sharpener, so i am using a razor blade to sharpen it. it's really preferable, you have a lot more control over the pencil tip. anyhow, i woke up early to go draw a masia, a catalan country house, this morning. anyhow, i went to sharpen my sanguine pencil with my razor blade, pushing hard on one end before i realized it was double edged. ow. really bloody thumb, working with a sanguine pencil. hopefully this is at least to ironic and funny to those reading, and i'm not the only one correlating a bloody thumb with a pencil named after a latin root word!

anyways, may as well touch on my pagan new year's if we're talking about blood rituals. i went up the pyrenese mountains with celia and her friends, to a site called can pí, which means house of pines in catalan. a few mutual friends had a masia up in the hills, and we spent new years way up in the mountains, a bit far from any big city. to add to the magic, it was a full moon! anyhow, there was a big old vegetarian dinner, with lotsa vegan goodies, and alcohol, and friends! after we ate, we walked out this big rock that looks over a wooded valley in the mountains. really, nothing around, and all very well lit by the moon. we had 10 minutes of silence before midnight to think about the new year, etc. towards the end, we sang a song and someone hit a gong 10 times to bring in the new year. for the next half hour, we danced under the moon and sang folk songs from around the world. really, it was very hippy and pagan, and it felt so good and relaxing. i felt very open with everyone in the group, really a very intimate way to start the new year. we went back to the house, where juan got out 2 guitars, 2 drums, and an oud, and we continued to have an hour long jam session, rotating instruments, and improvising tunes. finally, araitz, a friend visiting from basque country, read my tarot cards, which came out very pertinent and positive. nice! went back to celia's at 4 in the morning, totally crashed into bed, and woke up the next day at noon. celia and i walked around her pueblo, where i'd been before. nice to see everything again, really a neat place. it's called torrelles de llobregat, what a name! every year on january first, their extended family comes over and basically eat, drink, and chat all day. i partook, and it was very fun! they made some vegan pizza and steamed artichokes with olive oil and pepper for me, very good. ate well, drank well, and had some great conversations, talking a lot about my upcoming trip to kyrgyzstan. celia's aunt works in a bookstore and deals with a lot of publishers and agents, and she said to look her up when i got back from kyrgyzstan if i had a manuscript of a travel journal, which is my plan. maybe i have a connection! anyhow, went out to the bar later that tonight to visit celia's friends.

today i hung out in torrelles a bit, walking around and drawing while i could. a bit about catalan christmas traditions! caga tio, which literally means "uncle crap" is a prominent christmas figure here. it is a log with little legs and a smiley face on the end. he lays under a blanket in your living room for 2 weeks, and every day you feed him so that he'll be able to poop out presents for you on christmas. when christmas comes, you hit him with a stick and sing a song, encouraging him not to poop out salty sardines but sweet cakes for the kids. after you beat him up and sing to him, you lift up the blanket, and he will have hopefully pooped out some good presents for you. where's this story going? the library in torrelles has a 10 foot long caga tio, with about a 3 foot diameter. epic.

last saturday after posting a blog i went downstairs and had breakfast with josé maria. wow, we talked a lot about his life, very interesting, lived in the desert in algeria for 3 months with 2 80 year old french guys. no running water, electricity, etc. they used to walk 100 miles through the desert to the town to pick supplies. he spent a bit of his life as an ascetic, i'd say. he told me about when he left for algeria, he didn't know if he'd ever come back, so he got rid of everything he owned here in spain, said goodbye to his kids, family, parents, friends, etc, and took a bookbag with him overseas. evidently, he came back! anyhow, very fascinating. i left to go meet up with clara and javi at about 12 30, and we walked around barcelona. it was so neat to be back! it's like returning your old neighborhood, or seeing an old friend, and everything slowly comes back to you. we walked all around la ramblas and the area around there. i think i'm ready to be a decent tour guide when cj arrives! later we went to clara's house, and met up with her parents. spanish fathers are always so intimidating, asking about your work, your future, your education. in this case, asking me about natural resources and political history of central asia. ah!!! and i just came for the drinks? ok, ok, kidding .. .. we left, and on the way to javi's house we stopped at bar tomás, which is well known for its patatas bravas in barcelona. patatas bravas are potatos that are boiled, and then fried, and then served with a hot garlic sauce. so good! so we went to javi's house and had dinner around 10 30. here in spain, the eating schedule is so so different. people eat breakfast around 10 am, lunch at 2 30, and then dinner around 10 or 11. it's so damn late! anyhow, we had a bit to drink, and went to go to some bars in barcelona, with a 2 liter water bottle refilled with rum and coke. pretty ridiculous to be in the metro stop openly drinking! anyhow, went to a few bars in la rambla, all was well. by the time we got to some discoteca, i was so dead that i just sort of sat outside until the others were ready to leave. it was nice to sit in the fresh air, seeing the people walk around. we got home at around 4 30 am, and i was hurtin. the next morning i woke up and felt inspired, so i wrote a pretty lengthy treatise on how i felt about life, comparing it to a similar morning 3 years ago. i hung it on my wall, pretty nice to read from time to time. anyhow, javi and i went back downtown to check out barcelona. went to els 4 gats (the 4 cats), which is a bar where modernist poets and painters used to hang out, the most famous of which is picasso. the name comes from a spanish saying, roughly, "there's 4 cats there," which means that it's empty, no one is there, it's dead. kinda funny when it's the name of a café or bar. it's up there with les deux magots, the two cigarette butts, a parisian café for thinkers of yesterday. came back to sabadell, and started feelin rough, had a fever for about 2 days. i spent most of the week drawing with colored pencils and playing guitar. colored pencils are coming along, and i wrote 1 1/2 new songs. i need to finish the second one! it feels good to be writing again. i feel like i'm finally in a mental space again where i can begin to do so. however, my drawing of bedroom eyes, to me is just as expressive as a song could be. the symbolism is completely different, but still powerful to me. what a wild experience. i went and bought a really nice sketchbook with thick watercolor paper that will be sturdy enough to sell to folks. we'll see how it goes! gerald is telling me he wants to see me out in the street painting, drawing, doin my thing. i told him i'll write him in 15 years when i'm in south africa with a suitcase full of oil pastels and renting a shitty apartment with money i'm making from selling landscape drawings to tourists. ahh! life's crazy. well, today i am going to go out and draw a bit outside. it's very nice out. other than that, i plan on finishing up my new songs and relaxing. we work on monday, but tuesday is fiesta, so we have the day off. saturday i pick up cj, and we begin our immense journey (loren eiseley reference). for those who are interested, in order, we are going to .. barcelona, sabadell, tarragona, granada, sevilla, córdoba, madrid, toledo, barcelona. in andalucía, the area where we'll be travelling, it's very common for the bars to give you tapas when you order a beer. a tapa is like a snack, like a bowl of olives, mini sandwiches, patatas bravas, for example. so in granada, it's not uncommon to go to a bar and have 3 rounds of beers and get a lot of munchies. i suppose you leave feeling pretty well satisified. well, off to the real world. keep in touch!

earlier this week my friend i was walking home from work and my friend mathieu was hanging in front of the house, real antsy. he was feeling really stressed about being here in spain, not finding work, and doing nothing all day long. he is from nigeria and he's been here 9 months, still struggling with spanish. i know how it can be really stressful and humiliating to be in an environment where you can't communicate .. so i asked him if we could hang out after lunch. we went out to the parc de catalunya, and then out around town, eventually ending up at the library. he was telling me about his frustration at the wasting of human resources in africa, and particularly in nigeria, that he and his friends have degrees, willingness to work, but the government corruption is crippling the country's wealth. after we walked around for a few hours, and ran into other friends, he felt a lot better. it was a really close experience, we have a special friendship now. ironically, two days later, two filmmakers came to our house to see how it functions and to interview some of the immigrants about their experiences. they had stayed in congo and made a documentary about boys who are kicked out of their houses and live in the street. pretty wild stuff! sometimes i doubt the meaningfulness of my being here, but mathieu actually approached me about the topic, ironically i hadn't even brought it up! he said i had really calmed him in his anxiety (which was pretty severe!!) and that is the first step of a true humanitarian, to connect with people individually and comfort them. really meaningful to me, because that is my goal, which i suppose i indirectly accomplished. he told me he wants to succeed in life so he can be a philanthropist, to help others. real powerful! thursday i went out to see "let the right ones in" with ayuk. it was super good, swedish vampire movie, creepy, psychological, snowy. it made me miss ohio's weather! haha. i guess i'll get a taste of it in february. we had a good time though, ayuk told me he was inspired by the head vampire, whatever that means! maybe i should watch out for him .. .. haha. last night i met a friend at the alliance francaise, alianza francesa, french alliance, which is a french speaking group here in sabadell. they host discussions, classes, movies, etc. sort of a french presence in the city. anyhow, we met there for a few, and she invited me to a bar, el morosko, later that evening. i came home, read and had dinner, then went out to the bar. lotsa fun, met all of her friends. one is a drummer (potential jam session!), a painter, and another .. .. a wedding dress designer! haha. it was a total fluke that i hung out with them, but lotsa fun. i hope i can go out with them again. 2 beers, 3 glasses of wine, and 1 shot later (i forget the name of the shot, which is a bad sign) i took off to go home, which is conveniently two blocks away. my favorite sign of debauchery is having purple on my lips from the wine last night. don't worry, i swear i'm a moral, upright person! today i'm off to barcelona to meet javi, clara, and celia. we're going to walk around i suppose, do the normal, and then i'm staying the night at javi's. sleepover! tomorrow i'll probably hang out in barcelona for a bit and come back home. i feel it's some kind of wrongdoing that i live 20 minutes away from barcelona and i still haven't been yet. i've been there in the past, but not yet during this jaunt. tomorrow gerald and i are going out to draw and paint in the street, should be fun. i picked up a small, collapsible chair to take with me. my next goal is to find a scanner to upload some of these drawings! a few nights ago i did a self portrait called "bedroom eyes," after the converge song "jane doe." it has this sort of sense of being lost, hopeful, but ultimately disappointed. many evenings in my life i've left the house to encounter something, feeling very open to any experience, but ultimately feeling fooled and disappointed. the converge song, "roaming the streets with bedroom eyes, just dying to be saved" really rings to me. bedroom eyes, which i think of in a context of love, reserved for privacy, intimacy, and closeness, but exposed to the hustle and bustle of the street, ultimately disregarded. on a daily basis, we see more people that we dont know, than those we do. the odds are stacked! off to breakfast and then barcelona. adeu!

Well, been in Sabadell for exactly a week. I am living in a bit of an intentional community in a monastery in the city's downtown. We do work for the city hall, including recycling runs, picking up furniture in the street (ie trash) and picking up donated clothing from bins around the city. We then take the clothing to a rented barn and sort it to sell in our 2 thrift stores. The money from the government jobs and the thrift stores pays for the house's utilities, food, etc, and we who live and work here have access to whatever we need from the thrift store. In sum, working here 30 or so hours a week, I have free room and board, access to things I may need, and an additional €40 a week, which is about $70. To me, the most important service rendered by the community is housing for immigrants. Immigrants can live in this house for free until they get Spanish citizenship and can legally work here, find their own livelihood. I am so excited every day that I get up for work (at 6 30!), knowing that money that I help generate houses people who may otherwise be in the street. Even if I am paid minimal, it feels so good that the money is going to help others. Our surplus money is sent overseas for local projects in developing countries, such as funding schools, sanitation.

Today was the 25th anniversary of the community, so we went on a trip to Tarragona, which I already knew pretty well from my days with Celia. The last half hour of the trip, I ducked out to visit her. We split a beer and chatted, very nice to see her. I met up with the others and we went to Altafulla, which was a very important Roman city. We had a nice lunch and then went to a museum to see the ruins. Really fascinating, there was a Roman bath that was very much still intact, waterways, cisterns, latrines, bedrooms, and work areas for sorting and storing grain. Wow! We left and went to a really beautiful cliff, about 25 foot vertical drop to the Mediterranean Sea. You could see boats on the horizon, and directly underneath, the water was clear enough to see right through it. I faintly heard a guitar, so I walked a bit down the beach and there were 2 girls and a guy on the beach, one of the girls was playing the guitar. Feeling a bit ambitious, I asked if I could play a little, and I actually played them 3 of my songs .. they enjoyed them. Cute girls! A lot of times I meet people here with whom I'd like to keep in touch. It's a bit difficult, I don't have a phone, and they live in Barcelona, I live in Sabadell.

Someone new moved into the house, his name is Gerald, and he's French. Really great guy! We seem to have a lot in common, easily influenced, curious nature, etc. He spent 10-15 years of his life as a street artist, living relatively comfortably, travelling to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greece, and Ibiza with watercolor as his only livelihood. Selling paintings in the street, able to rent an apartment, eat somewhat well, and rent a motorcycle. He's going to help me set up a portable stand to sell my drawings in the street, and give me tips on how to do so successfully. How exciting! Tomorrow I have off, I plan on waking up and laying in bed for an hour or two, just reading and relaxing, and then going out to buy some things for my future career as a street artist, etc. Thursday I'm going to see the swedish vampire movie "Let the right ones in" and then off to Bar Krasna, which has live jazz every thursday.

OK, I'm in Sabadell. Celia's dad drove me here, it was wild, imagine seeing street signs, "Barcelona - 130 km" like it isn't a big deal. Well, driving around the city, lookin for the community house, all the street signs and buildings and statues were really familiar to me, it was a great feeling. I was here 2 years ago, and then also the year before that, working as before. Anyhow, finally made it to the house and Juan and Anna welcomed me, remembering that I was a vegan (sorta, try my best) had a bean soup for me with vegan sausages .. yes! They gave me keys to the crib and left me to eat my dinner and unpack my belongings. The house is half of a monastery, and it's goal is solidarity and social inclusion, that is, giving housing, support, and solidarity to those who may seem unfit to consumer society, immigrants, homeless, alcoholics, etc. As it is a monastery in essence, the rooms are about 7' by 8', with a twin bed, desk, and nightstand. All rooms have a small closet and a window, which can be shut in a major hardcore way to block out all light and sound. It felt great to put my stuff in a closet and to organize a space for myself, beats livin out of a suitcase. Today I woke up and laid in bed reading for a few hours, read a book by Abbé Pierre and then started reading Diario de una camarera by Octave Mirbeau. Creepy French stuff. Anyhow, got up and had some croissants for breakfast and went to walk around the city. Made it up to Parc de Catalunya, which is the city's main park, has a pool for duckies, lotsa statues, a bit of forest to walk in, lotsa grass, a few cafés, a skatepark. I watched the ducks and the pigeons and the geese swim around for a while. Diversity is fascinating, all of these different animals, doing different things, looking different, wow. Anyhow, went up to the park area and drew the treeline, very nice drawing, I sat down by two people selling bootleg DVDs and counterfeit purses. A lot of the people in the park walked by thinking that I was selling the goods, but really, I was just drawing some trees. Pretty harmless, either way. Anyhow, went back to the house and had lunch, then a cup of coffee and chatted with Miguel. He is 46 years old, great beard, and has been a self proclaimed vagabond his whole life, hitchhiking and jumping trains all around the Mediterranean and Middle East. Told me some wild stories about hitchhiking in Israel, hm. So I went back out and walked around more, went to the Caixa Social Obra, which is basically a free art museum sponsored by a Spanish bank. It was called Ets únic? which means in Catalan, "Are you unique?" It was all about self identity, but also biometrics, technology to identify people by hair, ears, fingerprints, etc. Did you know that no two ears are alike, and that they are almost as reliable as fingerprints in identification? I was really creeped out by a lot of this stuff. I left and went to a bar called Café Belles Arts, and completely fell in love. Sort of hole in the wall, faded wood panelling, tile floor, colored glass windows. When I walked in there was a Chinese couple smoking in the corner, the man had a moustache. I had a Volt Damm Jazz, which is an 8% beer, and sat back to enjoy the vibe. They were playing some real dreary, dreamy pop, sounded like John Denver or Carole King on a downer. The whole experience in the bar felt like a dream, I'm sure that it will be my haunt during my stay here in Sabadell. I was so enamored that I stayed there for two hours after I finished my drink. It shares a space with Academia Belles Arts, where I may sign up for figure drawing classes. When I left, the contrast was immediately striking, like waking up and the dream slowly fading away. However, I forgot that the main street here (La rambla) is shut down every Sunday night with Do Not Cross signs for the cars, and chairs and tables from cafés fill into the streets, full of people walking, dogs, babies, skateboards, musicians, tricksters, contrabanders with bootleg purses. I am so tempted to buy Larry David's "Whatever Works" for €2 off a street vendor. Why not? Anyhow, felt very magical. I watched some guy play La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf and he kept glaring at me like he wanted me to give him money. So I left and came back to the house, had a nice salad and drank water. Tomorrow I start work with my old friend Vicenc, driving around in a big truck and picking up donated furniture to refurbish and sell in our shop to support the house, which is my job on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, we will pick up donated clothes to sell. Good stuff. There's a film club here that has Agnes Varda movies every Wednesday night, which is what I will probably be doing this Wednesday. Sabadell's rival city is called Terrassa, the soccer teams are rivals, there's a harmless hostility between the two. Anyhow, they say "Sabadell, mala piel" which means Sabadell, bad skin! And in Sabadell, they say "Terrassa, mala raza!" which means Terrassa, bad race! Keep in touch.

well! i left atlanta yesterday at 5 30 p.m. and arrived in barcelona at 8 a.m. today. overall a good flight, since we were flying east it became dark very quickly. i had dinner on the plane and drank 3 cups of wine. it was really a trip being drunk on a plane, it seemed like a big circus. lots of people were laughing and cutting up about 20 minutes after drinks were served. anyhow, wrote a bit and watched the clouds roll by, and slept for a few hours. i arrived in barcelona early, and my friend celia was a little late picking me up at the airport. i ended up sitting on a bench and playing guitar for about half an hour. it actually seemed that a lot of people enjoyed the music. of course, an american going to spain and playing flamenco is probably about as unoriginal as a spaniard going to alabama and playing the blues. keep it in perspective. anyhow, celia picked me up and we drove an hour to her apartment. it is on the fourth floor of a building, with 4 different balconies. you can look out over alleys or over a big plaza where the town hall is. there is only one outlet in the kitchen, so you can either turn on the coffee pot, microwave, toaster, or hot water heater. she and her roommate are in med school, and they have a dog here as well. the house has lots of drawings and paintings in it. celia and i had tomato sandwiches (pa amb tomaquet) and some beers. we are going to walk around the city and relax, and she works for a few hours this evening. tomorrow we are going to have a little dinner party with some of her friends from med school. i´m very comfortable and happy to be back here. my spanish is still pretty decent and i feel like i´m returning to an old house, everything seems so familiar and distant.

well! haven't written in here for a while. i left this morning on another trip to atlanta, georgia, this time on a 2009 yamaha v star 250. its a 400 pound bike, 85 miles to the gallon, 250cc. the bike is super light, so im taking all back roads. semi tucks would just about blow me over if i dared get on the freeway! riding went well today, i wore thermal underwear, jeans, two pairs of socks, a wool sweater, a hooded sweatshit, a scarf, a leather jacket, and two gloves. it may sound like overkill, but cold temperature is the last thing i want to worry about! the ride from springfield to xenia was noneventful, ive done it plenty of times. once i passed the 725 turnoff to head to bellbrook, i was in uncharted territory. the ride was enjoyable on 42 south, i rode it all the way into springfield. the ride from mason, ohio to cincinnati was less than enjoyable. small towns every 2 miles, each full of unnecessary stoplights. riding through cincinnati was great, lotsa of hills, curves, potholes. a lot of the cars around me were playing loud rap or soul music, and i really enjoyed the sound and the beat as i rode through the city. i ended up ditching my directions and rode up and down the ohio side of the ohio river until i could find the bridge to get to kentucky. i met up with my sister stacey about 20 miles into kentucky. i was feeling a bit stressed about the last 40 miles, but i really unwound when we sat down on an outside patio at a coffee shop ~ apple cider for her, double espresso for me. oh, the mood enhancing benefits of caffeine! i readjusted my whole attitude of following a schedule, and hopped on the bike to see if i could make it to lexington, ky before sundown, as my original plan was to make it to la follette, tennessee to stay with my great aunt margaret. i got chills when 27S (my kentucky route) turned into 68W. for those unaware, last summer my friend kyle martin and i made nearly this exact same trip on bicycle (i.e., non motorized, 13 day trip in the july heat). 68W is the route that we took from ripley, ohio to lexington kentucky. drove through bourbon county, which is where all the 50-75 million dollar race horses live. old money. not exaggerating, last summer kyle and i got a ride from this jana lady who gave us a history of the area as we pulled into lexington. pretty ridiculous to see the huge yards, castle looking houses, and massive iron gates. pulled into lexington and made it to my friends house near the UK campus (from memory! wow.) and pulled up. luckily they hadn't moved, they were home, and they had just made a magnificent vegan soup. i ate a bowl, took off my layers of cold weather gear, and walked a bit around the city. i found my way to a coffee shop and had a mediocre cup of sumatra to warm up. i was walking back to the UK library and i met two African women, one from Zambia and one from Kenya, who were working on their masters here on an 8 week study abroad. i showed them the way to the library. now i'm off to a show with the folks from the shrieking shack on the north side of lexington. tomorrow morning i'm going to play clarinet downtown for an hour or so with the case open. good practice, fun for me, and a modest way to start the day. i enjoy playing music and sharing it with people. really, i've only been playing on and off for a week, but i feel confident enough with my improv on a downtown city street. plus, itd be nice to scrounge up enough for my next tank of gas. $5 to fill up the bike isn't too bad, is it?

Why read when you could write?

Why read when you could write? A good hypothetical question, it would go well in a superficial popular literature novel or an inspirational email, but there are practical responses to this question, both in support and in opposition.

Why read? One hears and experiences another’s temporary condition as a human. From a post modern perspective, there is no universal truth and all voices have an equal worth and history in constituting a universal dialogue. One also experiences new constructions and patterns. In Charles Baudelaire’s “Au lecteur,” why is the monster “ennui” delicate through the eyes of the poet? In Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Der Schwan,” the swan dips into the pool – the end of human life. How is it a “letting himself fall” (Sich-Niederlassen) through the perspective of the writer?

Reading in a language other than one’s own native tongue leads to fleeting thoughts in pure image. For example, reading “J’ai une tasse de café,” (I have a cup of coffee), one takes the word “tasse de café,” (cup of coffee) extracts the metaphysical entity of the object (whatever it may be), and rewraps it in English symbols – semantics – “cup of coffee.” This becomes all the more interesting as one reads of the Spanish duende or the French oubli or ennui, which do not translate neatly or readily into English. Last night while looking at the stars through my bedroom window, I attempted to find a word, in any language known to me, for a specific feeling or tendency – I found none. I feel that my thoughts, like those of the other seven billion on this planet, are hazy, vague mazes of symbols – words – encoded into our proper tongues, which dissipate like steam into the indifferent heavens.

Why read when I could write? There is a desire for connectedness and cohesion among peoples, and sharing a voice, a history, is a link in this connectivity. There is both room for and a need of the voice of a new father, a dying child, a lonesome naturalist, a social philologist, all speaking their native tongues infused with unique mindsets and worldviews. They do not speak in idle, and for true relation we must listen, dwell upon, and share one another’s voices and histories.

Why read when I could write? Because Leonard Cohen said it best in 1967 with “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye:”

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm

Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm

Yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new in the city

And in the forest, they smile like me and you

But now it’s come to distances, and both of us must try

Your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Could I express any better the early morning sentiments of waking up next to a lover in late summer? I feel moved even writing these lies of another in my own crooked hand. I never saw my lover’s hair as a “sleepy golden storm,” though I knew that millions of others, including Cohen, have previously felt this elation, that we are not “new in the city.” I was bewildered at the moment I heard this song after my liaison. The song became my voice – I had nothing to add to the history. As an artist, I felt that my work was already completed for me. Did Cohen write this song for Marianne Ihlen on the Greek island of Hydra? For a different lover in a different place? Was it Baudelaire’s thoughts or Lorca’s? Akhmatova’s or Rumi’s? My own?

The question is: Was my moment of resignation in uttering my sentiments the birth or death of my artistic voice? An ignoble moment or a step towards growth? A fleeting instant or a critical period? I felt connected to Cohen when I received his interpretation of a morning after, though I offered no private history or voice. I acknowledged and experienced his morning with Marianne. Though Veronica only listened to my song “White Morning Dress,” she acknowledged my recounting of her beauty during a typical Spanish morning, wearing a simple white cotton dress. She experienced my perspective and a connection was thus established between us. The next time one picks a flower for a woman and she tucks it in her hair, may my voice suffice:

And then climbing your neighbor’s fence,

I clipped a purple flower

And tucked it among your curls

I’ve still got a beautiful photo.

The photo, in a physical sense, is lost. The image however lives in the song and in the imagination of all those who have heard it and share the feeling of an idyllic scenario loved, lost, and cherished in a memory. The image now lives in you who have just read the verse. In this sense a song, that is, writing or an utterance, has a life – it connects lives and thus unifies people. The following terms have a significant meaning and merit meditation:

1) The life of a song – A song, once written and released, takes on a life in its ability to speak, interact and share a history.

2) A song of lives – A song can travel among many lives. “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” has lived on Songs of Leonard Cohen and in my former residence in Columbus, Ohio. “White Morning Dress” resided in my head and reverberated in my room during a winter as I explored melodies and chord patterns. It also lives in Murcia, Spain, Veronica having experienced and cherished it.

3) Songs of life – Songs of life are what we read, write, hear and sing throughout the duration of our time on this planet – our human condition.

Would this letter mean anything to you if written in Old Church Slavonic, a 9th century literary language devised exclusively to translate the Bible? No, but the scholar of dead languages would potentially feel a relation to it, though maybe bothered by the fact that an ancient language is borrowing modern words like “computer” or referencing a poet from the 1960’s, Leonard Cohen, or a young man in American in 2009.

Why write instead of read? Why give when I could receive? Why speak when I could listen? Why read when I could write? Why listen when I could think? Why share when I could hide? Why hide when I could experience?

Banish these questions and do both. Connection is a two way effort and it is equally meaningful to receive as it is to give. If we all spoke and offered voices, there would be no recognition or movement of histories or experiences. We will learn when to offer our own histories, and when to love and mourn those of others. To this end, listen and write, receive and speak. Both ends are infinitely and equally valuable in our quest for connection, the development of artistic vision, and relation of our unique voices to one another’s condition as sentient human beings.

ways i've wrecked my bike, chronological order:

-the scorpion. car pulled in front of me, cut me off, and parked. i couldn't stop in time, jumped over the bars, over the median, and onto the sidewalk, where i landed headfirst on the ground. my hands couldn't really catch myself, so i slid on my chest (i had scrapes on my shoulders and the tops of my hands!). i performed a rarely, though beautifully executed dance move on the rough concrete of springfield ohio sidewalks .. the scorpion, wherein you have such momentum that your legs actually arc over your body, resembling a scorpion tail. the driver got out and asked if i was okay. before i could say yes, i noticed i was dripping blood on my bicycle seat. oops.

-doored! i was riding to a university library late one night (1 a.m.ish) to print a paper .. i was riding relatively fast down 15th ave, and someone opened her car door into me. i had bullhorn handlebars (aptly named, they look like bull horns ..?) and her car door caught them. the bars went sideways, i went over them, and my chest hit the doorframe. i rolled over the door and onto the ground, she slammed her door and i heard her scream from the inside. i laid on the ground for a few minutes before getting up and leaning against her trunk. she finally came out and asked if i were okay. nope! the next day i was extremely sore and had a 3" wide bruise from her doorframe from my right shoulder to my left hipbone. ow.

-one two punch to the knee. i was riding fast around some turns on college avenue and my bike slid out on gravel. i couldnt get my feet out of the clips and my left knee was squished between my bike frame and the ground. ow! not so bad though. i was riding again a month later .. downtown columbus, and my phone rang. i got on the sidewalk to answer my phone .. as i pulled back onto the street via an exit ramp of a parking garage, a car came barrelling up and hit me from behind. my bike went under the car, i was thrown 5-6 feet into the street. broken stem and bent handlebars on the bike, and an excruciating injury to the already injured left knee. the doctor a few weeks later said that i had internal bleeding in the joint, and that every time i used my knee, it bled more inside, making for a slow healing process. insult to injury? the cop gave me a ticket for riding on the sidewalk .. if i were riding on the sidewalk, what was he doing hitting me on it? ass.

-black ice! ive been riding all winter on my 42mm winter tires. ive had some minor falls on the ice, mostly fun, with no real problems. i was riding to caffe (sic) apropos the other night when i hit a patch of black ice. again, i couldn't get my feet out of the pedals, and my bike went down. i was trying (subconsciously?) to keep my head from hitting the ground, but there was such momentum that it sort of slingshotted into it. i hit the right side of my forehead/temple on the ground. i stood up and everything was very shaky and spinning, and i felt nauseous. i touched my forehead with my glove and when i pulled my hand away, there was blood on it. third day after the wreck and i still have a bump, a cut, and a chronic headache.

its fun to chronicle all the ways you be hit, be thrown from, fall off, tapdance around your bike. lets hope i can make it injury free this summer during my 1000 mile tour from springfield oh to bushnell illinois to calumet michigan .. !

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Listening to: Remains Of The Day - Under A Banished Sky

january 22nd! a lot to inform! i guess ill start from where i left off .. winter break was nice, i spent a lot of my time reading a book (personal narrative) about the chechen/russian conflict in the 90s, 'the wealth and poverty of nations,' a play on words of adam smith's 'the wealth of nations' which attempted to explain the cultural and economic development of the world, resulting in the current economic and political map we now refer to, and a "beginner's russian course." russian is amazin', but i unfortunately havent had time to work on it since school started again. christmas was nice -- i got to see my mom and sisters, as well as other family at a few different dinners. my cousin cara made some amazin' vegan dishes, so i definitely ate very well .. ! as far as christmas, i got snow tires and fenders for my bicycle (!!! so fun !!!) and the complete poems of anna akhmatova, a favorite poet of mine. new years was pretty fun .. ive been substance free for the past 6-8 weeks now, and new years was no exception. i went to a very fun party at my friend laura's, met some new people. all in all, a positive event! a few days later, january 5th, winter quarter started. i guess you could call it a 'quarter' .. i dont seem to be doing that much! i am taking a class on french graphic novels, arabic grammar, and an individual study of women french authors (phenomenal!). graphic novels, so far we've only read "tintin en amerique," and for the french women authors, ive read cixous "the laugh of the medusa," simone de beauvoir's "the second sex" and colette's "the vagabond." im making progress through "femmes d'alger dans leur appartement" .. the language is amazing in it. good deal! heres a few pictures of my bike, with the 42mm kwick tires, holiday commuterz:

ive had a blast riding around town, sliding around, basically riding like an idiot. ive fallen a few times even! i LOVE it! i also winterized myself for the -20 wind chill riding conditions :

but maybe not enough! last week i came down with bronchitis, which was becoming a bit debilitating, so i eventually went to the doctor. now the temperature is back in the 20s and 30s, and im symptom free, so all is well! my band has been practicing, and it looks like our first show is feb 20th. we will have to hustle if we want to play well .. but im sure that we'll be fine. im very excited! we have this tight to dream of autumn/bucket full of teeth sound with a bit of hot cross style guitar. que mas? a professor of mine from freshman year invited another student and me to her house for dinner a few weeks ago .. it was very nice! vegan couscous, and best of all, vegan crepes cooked in orange flavored liquor .. wow! we all had a nice conversation, and the other student and i left the house around 11 30 or midnight. thanks gloria! :-D i had my peacecorps interview yesterday (1/21). it was about an hour long, and i feel i had excellent responses to the questions. i feel optimistic about my application procedure. i will find out in 2-3 weeks about my status .. im so anxious! ive really put 'all of my eggs into one basket' on this one, so lets hope it works out. finally, last night kyle, anuj, and i went to see cursive, lacona, and church of the red museum at the summit. church of the red museum was amazing, lacona was a bit boring, and cursive was killer! true to form, tim kasher became progressively drunker throughout the show, until his voice went out and they closed with 'the casualty' wow! one funny event, there were some really aggro drunk girls at the show .. one of whom eventually tried to fight me since i was getting pushed into her .. she grabbed my face 2-3 times, pulled off my glasses, and even pulled out one of my earrings (that i wasnt able to find afterwards!). i guess we're fortunate that im a pacifist, because im sure other people would have hit her in the mouth .. kyle (and others) got on her ass for it, so that was nice. thanks kyle :-D its shocking to me that people resort to violence as an answer to problems, espcially that adults will do so! ill be sure to post again when i find out the results to my peacecorps application. im sure ill either be elated or depressed, haha.

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Listening to: Cursive - A Red So Deep

well, its been 2 months since ive last written in here. ouch. ive been very busy with school .. i really accomplished and learned a lot this quarter. i took two upper level french courses, and we read the following books/poems:

Honore de Balzac - Le Pere Goriot

Charles Baudelaires - les Fleurs du mal

Francoise-Rene de Chateaubriand - Atala-Rene

Marceline Desbordes-Valmore - Misc. poetry

Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary, Un Coeur Simple

Alphone de Lamartine - Le Lac

Stephane Malarme - L'apres midi d'un faune

Prosper Merimee - Carmen

Albert Vigny - La mort du loup

Emile Zola - Germinal

Michel de Montaigne - Extraits des essais

Madame de Lafayette - La Princesse des cleves

LaRochefoucault - Maximes

Abbe Prevost - Manon Lescaut

Jean Anouilh - Medee

basically, a pretty extensive list of french novels and poems. i learned a lot about different thinkers, history, social changes, literary schools, philosophical trends, many ideas in a rich survey of french literary from the 1600s to today. i also took an extensive class on historical/comparative linguistics -- right up my alley! i learned a lot about language change, growth, death, political and social factors that influence these fields. yes! ive been playing drums everyday, realistically, a lot more than i play guitar these days. its strange to play rhythm instead of lead .. at first in a negative way, but its grown on me. its really interesting to experience the differences between playing bass, guitar, or drums (or ukelele for that matter) in a band. each has a different purpose in a band, and its really enlightening to partake in each one in a musical endeavor. winter's here, i think, the temperature is in the 10s and 20s, and its been snowing a bit. its very relaxing and pretty, i really enjoy walking in the snow or watching it fall from inside the house. im finally slowing down enough to appreciate walking and reflecting, or in french, flaner. we keep our thermostat in the house on 47, but i feel pretty well adapted to it. rewilding? haha, we just got a wood burning stove that we are hopefully installign soon .. anyways, the quarter is now over, and i finally have free time to focus on some personal projects. im going to be working as much as possible to save up money for the next two quarters .. my goal is to pay for tuition out of pocket, which is pretty ambitious. i feel confident that i can do it. i also plan on reviewing my arabic grammar and expanding my grammar to be prepared for the arabic grammar class im taking in the winter. there are also a few spanish novels id like to read, and a memoir about the community i lived in in spain the summer of 2007. the book is about communal living, poverty, globalization, capitalism, early christian sentiment, and modern, healthful living. thats what i gather from the table of contents at least. i know that one chapter is "gente privilegiada que intenta ir contre corriente. es decir, inadaptes sociales" which means, "privileged persons who wish to go against the flow, that is to say, the socially unadapted." perfect! im also kicking around picking up a russian or mandarin chinese grammar. id really like to start one of them, im leaning more towards russian due to peace corps ambitions, since a lot of countries im looking at are former soviet, thus maintaing the cyrilic alphabet and a potential generation of russian speakers. which brings me to my last goal for winter break, which is to finish my application to peace corps. kenton moved back into the house from the beet harvest in minnesota .. its great to see him again, we've been playing music a lot. i made a new friend ana, she is from mexico and traveling through ohio for a bit. shes very nice and has some really powerful, inspiring perspectives. i feel ive definitely learned a lot from her -- positive changes in my life. plus i get to speak spanish with her! que mas? i was originally going to spend a week in atlanta at my dads with my sisters, but scheduling issues came up, so it looks like ill be spending the winter in columbus. disappointing, but there are of course projects and meaningful endeavors here as well. i picked up an accordeon at uncle sam's pawn shop in mid september, and id like to learn some christmas songs .. definitely corny, but its right up my alley. all of my friends tell me i act like an uncle .. halloween, i dressed up as an alien baby:and in late september/early october i noticed a small lump on my face. it grew really fast, became very painful, spread to my lymph nodes, my whole right side of my face sorta blew up, and it hurt to eat. after 2 weeks of antibiotics and no change, i had it drained, via 12 needles to the face and neck, pulling out 2 teaspoons of gunk. i feel normal now, but theres still a noticeable lump. im going back to the doctor on the 12th to see whats going on. i did get it tested for cancer, and im negative. :P you can see it in this picture, though i mainly posted it to show that my dreadlocks are getting longer and longer ..

i look really blase here because school was consuming my life. maybe i was reading baudelaire.

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Listening to: mewithoutYou - Cure For Pain

via FoxyTunes

i moved back to columbus just over a week ago .. last saturday. i was planning on staying at jeff's house (well, his room) as i worked and looked for a place. apparently kyle had the same intentions, and given the small size of jeff's room, i ended up spending a lot of my days in the city and nights in the monster house. 2 or 3 days into my stay, hurricane ike went through texas, and the wind gusts hit columbus and took out a lot of power lines, leaving most of the city, and a lot of ohio, without power. i was working in the hospital during the entire storm in a room without any windows, and the hospital has backup power in generators. long story short, i had no clue anything was going on until i left on my bike and there werent any street lights, and people were actually out of their houses in the streets! it was a little eerie, especially since a lot of places in town remained without electricity for 3-4 days. i did my best not to feel powerless (pun intended) and enjoyed the different living situations. i checked out a sublease at the corner of maynard and 4th in columbus, which seemed very nice. i wouldve liked to have moved in there and focused on songwriting and music. however, i ended up moving into king with friends of mine. its a great place, and i already feel really happy, welcome, and excited to be here. im living in a small bedroom with windows and bright green walls:

and a large and beautiful (epic) garden in the front:

last night a bike was stolen from behind the house .. which is very upsetting and frustrating. there are ways to get a bike without having to take from others! today i was making a sandwich in the kitchen and talking to connie when she heard someone rustling in the back yard .. someone was trying to steal another bike! eventually the person (a young girl) took the bike off the rack and rode off with it. i had seen the situation going down, so i was ready when connie yelled for everyone to come out and help catch her. my bike was out front, so i grabbed it and took off down the high street. it was pretty easy for the 600 mile bike tourist (sorry, i really dont have that big of an ego, but i had to!) on a road bike (freshly inflated tires) to catch an overweight girl on a mountain bike. i caught her, got the bike back, and talked to her a bit about stealing. it was one of the first times id actively used rationale taught by leo tolstoy (!!!) and based on the sermon on the mount about non resistance to evil. i feel really inspired and energized by it. i feel like it was a very meaningful event in my life .. anyways, jeff kyle and i went to the warhol exhibit, and heres a picture of us playing with the silver balloons. i look weird and jeff looks jaded:

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Now playing: Buffy Sainte-Marie - Bells

via FoxyTunes

cj and i hung out the past 2-3 days. first she came over after hanging out with kyle for a few .. it had been a few months since id last seen her, so it was wonderful! the next day kyle, jeff, and i drove to bellbrook to pick her up. we hung out at her house for a few and had coffee, very relaxing! we left for dayton to go to the greek festival, which was fun. there was (unnecessarily) loud greek music from a live band, playing (i think) a lute and a bouzouki. we walked around the festival, which was unfortunately mostly shops and stands selling domino's "greek pizza," which just had olives on it (lame!), or greek beer, whatever that may consist of! i did talk to an older greek woman, reading the greek on the picture frames she was selling. she was pretty excited about my pronunciation! it made me want to study greek more .. just like talking to the russians at crystal lake made me want to study russian more .. or meeting claudia in atlanta made me want to study german more .. ah! we stopped at a mediterranean restaurant and watched arab music videos and ate falaffel, then went to the halal market to buy lebanese and turkish pastries. pistacchio baklava! back at cjs again, we threw a football and drank tea. we walked to the arboretum down the street from her house and got sorta creeped out (i know i did!) in the dark. needless to say, it was a lot of fun. the next day cj was having a rough day at work, so she came to springfield. i rode to meer her and kyle at the state theatre at 11 pm, but it was starting to storm, so i rode home before i even met up with them. drag! cj came over afterwards and we watched the science of sleep. the next day we went behind vernon murphy baseball fields and to the reservoir. a butterfly landed on her finger.

we then went to the hickory with my mom and had a white greek pizza (cant get away from it!) with spinach, tomato, red onion, and olive oil. phenomenal! yesterday and this morning i continued to weed out items before i move back to columbus. i got a few packages together for jill and shona, and i rode them to the ups store. i was pretty impressed with the fact that both boxes fit into my seagull bag, furthermore that it rode very comfortably to the ups store! i knew the bag was amazin', but this is pushing it. here are some fun pics:

pretty cool! today im riding bikes with kyle, micah, amber, ?, to yellow springs, where we're meeting up with sam agarwal and ?. im so excited! i have this secret (guilty pleasure) to show sam my dreads and how theyve grown, though its really only been 3 months since ive seen her. im going to clean up a bit and get ready for the ride. i wish id taken the strawberries i found in the dumpster at aldi's ... bottom feeders unite!

time is winding down here in peachtree city! we are leaving early next saturday for ohio. all in all, we've been here about a month and a half. we've built a pergola, laid a concrete slab, a big deck off the second floor, and we're making handrails and cutting a door for it now. our next step is building a lower platform for it that is level with the house, which unfortunately entails moving dirt around the yard in an awkward wobbly wheelbarrow. im trying to finish my ukulele case before we go. the construction is done (and done well!) and im working on the paint job. im doing most of the surface in an islamic geometric design inspired by this image:

lots of painstaking work with a protractor and mechanical pencils! the smiths, mewithoutyou, and breather resist are in heavy rotation, so its been agreeable. one freak incident however! i had my mechanical pencil on the ground, just barely under the edge of my toenail. i moved my box really quickly to get a better look at what i was doing, and i accidentally hammered/wedged the sharp end of the pencil under my toenail. it really felt like a razor blade cutting into my toe! it bled a bit, and got a nasty infection the few days later. it really hurt to wear shoes. worst of all, i couldnt skateboard. ah! anyways, it makes for a great story, accidentally hammering a mechanical pencil under your toenail. hm. ive been working on some hectic spanish songs on guitar. ive learned 'romance' (composer anonymous) and im currently working on, struggling with, recuerdos de la alhambra (tarrega) and leyenda/asturias (albeniz). its so challenging and refreshing, fresh to work on. i hope to really master them someday in my life. im currently reading 'the kingdom of god is within you, or christianity not as a mystical teaching but a new way of life' by leo tolstoy. it is so fascinating! he is basically calling for non resistance to evil on all levels, but pointing out that in doing so towards the government takes away their strength, since their power is based on control and violence. this leads to the abolition of government, armies, and taxes, allowing humans to live together caring for their neighbors in a communal spirit. he even extends the creed of elimination of violence to animals, promoting a vegetarian lifestyle in 1894. yes! a bit of a more modern take on his writing might encourage one towards veganism .. ;) kyle and i dumpstered a way cool huffy women's road bike -- a santa fe -- a few days ago in a goodwill dumpster. we took it to our friend alex's last night so he could take it to the atlanta bike co op. hes the nicest guy! we met his girlfriend and roommate, had pizza and ginger ale, and then went to a xiu xiu show. the show was great, though xiu xiu's set was unfortunately pretty short. and they didn't play buzz saw! i always think that they will .. its such a good song. the opening band was great as well .. carly buzolich i think was her name. before the xiu xiu set, i started talking to this girl beside us. turns out that she was german, on a 2 month vacation in america, travelling and working on photographing urban landscapes. very cool! she kyle and i went out for coffee at majestic's diner after the show, and we drove her home at around 2 30 a.m. it was nice to meet her! after accidentally driving in a few circles in downtown atlanta, we got on 85 south for the car ride home. we arrived shortly before 4 a.m. and laid down in the hot humid house to sleep. i woke up at 10, feeling like real hell, but a cup of irish tea and menial measurements of angles on my ukulele case woke me up. its a bit rainy today, so we're working on some stuff inside the house, and hoping that it clears up enough to work on handrails. for now, auf wedersehen! claudia, if you read this, mail me at joshuadaraja@gmail.com! i tried calling the number you gave me but it didnt work ..

we've been at my dad's in peachtree city for about five days now, and its been good! we're building a pergola on the front of his house, and a patio and a large deck on the back. we're also putting up a gazebo in the back, time permitting. all in all, it will be a good amount of work! we're currently facing a small delay, as my dad procrastinated in submitting the building permits to the city, so we're waiting 2-3 days for them to be approved. we also have to order all of the lumber and supplies that we'll be needing. for now its leisurely, but when everything arrives we'll have plenty to do. its about 90-95 degrees here everyday, and plenty humid. so far we've had passing storms almost every night, which is pretty cool. peachtree city isnt bad, the majority of the city is connected by paved paths, mainly intended for golf carts, but bikes can go over them just fine. the routes are unmarked, so they're a bit difficult to follow at first. we've been the local library a few times, which is slightly disappointed. small film section, and not much in the linguistics section. the history and biography section seems good -- i just read a book on gandhi, and one on the taliban invasion in afghanistan. im currently reading about post-taliban/post us invasion of afghanistan. im reading a lot of books about and by lev tolstoy, he is very interesting to me right now. im really interested in his ideas of faith, christian anarchy, and nonviolence/resistance to evil. unfortunately, the library doesnt have too many books on his thinking, so i have to do the majority of my reading online. other than that, im really trying to crack down on my german, both the grammar and increasing my vocabulary. i recently had an epiphany with the dative/accusative cases, so now i feel more confident in my grammatical comprehension of the language. not much else to report!

the show in chattanooga was starting at 9 30 or 10 pm, and we had a few hours to kill. we didnt really want to ride to the north side of town and back down, so we hung out downtown. we bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and bananas, and we each sat down and ate five (5!) sandwiche. each! we then went back to the library to hang out until the show. when the library closed, we went a few blocks down to the starbucks patio, which was closing, but a guy who worked there gave us some cookies that were getting thrown out. awesome! we went to the show at bohemia jj's, which was a lot of fun, definitely different from other shows id been to. the band future virgins was awesome -- they actually played in atlanta the following night. unfortunately, they beat us here! we rode our bikes up a huge hill to this guy brad's house, who had done a bike trip from canada to memphis TN (wow!) and had travelled extensively in asia and south america. he let us sleep on his couch/floor, and the next morning he let us shower and made us homemade oatmeal with peaches (thanks brad!). we left chattanooga at around 9 a.m. and in less than 6 miles were on rt 41 for atlanta, georgia. within the first hour we had crossed the state line and had taken a picture of our bikes against a "georgia welcomes you" type sign. we stopped in the city of ringgold, ga, at a bike shop called 'chain reaction.' the man there fixed kyle's derailleur and adjusted his brakes, and hung out and chatted with us for a few. he actually let me ride a $5000 jamis road bike. crazy! the whole thing weighed 14 pounds, which is absurd compared to the weight of our touring bikes at the time. i felt nervous riding it (since it is worth more than any car id ever owned, geesh), but it was awesome. we went out to a small fountain and ate the rest of our peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies. we hopped back on rt 41 and continued on to dalton, where the ride got unbearably ugly. we accidentally got on the dalton bypass, which is designed mainly for semi trucks. it was a 16 mile stretch of bumpy asphalt, with the same view the entire duration. semi trucks were passing us about 2 feet away, which is always terrifying. frazzled, we pulled over and asked someone at a loading dock about an alternate route, and he told us to take old dixie highway to tilton to 41. it worked, and we had a comparatively less stressful route to resaca. the road became very relaxed as we rode the final leg of the day to calhoun, ga. we asked a lady in a funeral home parking lot if she knew where we could set up a tent, and she said there was a state park up the road. riding past it, we saw it was about 30x70 ft, a statue in the middle and chained off to the public. we later learned that its the smallest state park in the entire u.s. riding further, we saw a house with a huge back yard with tree cover -- better yet, there were people in the driveway! we pulled up to ask if we could potentially set up a tent in the yard. ironically, they didnt even live there, and the house had been for rent for the past 8 years! the son (tory) said they didnt live there, but that we could camp 2 miles back at their house near the state park. we followed them there, up big hills, and got to there house around 7 30. they cooked us dinner, let us shower, and let us sleep in their air conditioned living room (more than i can say ive ever had in columbus, haha). we even stayed up and played guitar with them! thanks tamela tory and jessie! the next morning we finished the rest of our food (a cliff bar, a bag of peanuts, and peanut butter crackers each) and hit the road. the road was a lot hillier than the previous day, and we had a lot of big hills to slowly ascend, hitting 30 mph on the downside. we made it to cartsville, ga, where the traffic was getting gross and dangerous. we ate at a subway (free cheeze pizza, score!) and took an hour break there. we went back outside and the sun was beating, traffic was horrendous. we rode on the road which became increasly dangerous, with no shoulder and semis driving by. eventually we got to acworth, which was the worst we'd yet seen. it was like driving through easton or fairfield, but on a much larger scale. after being passed by countless semis and other hurried drivers, we pulled over at a books a million right outside of atlanta to see if my dad could pick us up. we had the sad realization there isnt necessarily a safe bike route into one of the biggest cities in the u.s. at rush hour on a friday. anyways, my dad showed up, we loaded up the bikes, and arrived here at 7. though we didnt do the last 3% of our trip, im still very happy for what we've done! we left springfield oh on july 5th at 12 30, and arrived at my dads on july 18th at 7 or 8 p.m. its been an awesome trip, and id like to sincerely thank everyone who helped us along the way. you gave us the comfort and confidence necessary for successful travelling, and you helped us greatly on our way. heres a link to my photobucket, which has about 120 pictures from our trip. you can email me at joshuadaraja@gmail.com if you have any questions about any of them.

http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/joshuawalden/Springfield%20Atlanta%20Bike%20Trip%2008/

anyways, ill continue using this blog, but not exclusively for the bike trip. check back periodically! :D

its been about a week (ah!) since we last updated, so this is going to be a long one, full of funny details and terrifying tribulations. picking up the last update, we hung out in lexington, ky all day, due to forecasted thunderstorms and an acoustic show schedule at the shrieking shack, where we were staying. we spent the day around town, went back to the starbucks where we had befriended the local baristas. after milling around there for several hours, they gave us a bag of 9 pastries (!!!) that we soon decided would be todays snack and tomorrows breakfast. we went back to the house around 6 or so to catch the show. we caught zephaniah bostow, jack cofer, good night good morning (?), misty lyn and the big beautiful, ap swearenger, and matt jones. it was a great show, and a lot of people sort of joked about our riding so far on bike just to catch them play. hah! so we got up early the next morning, found that all but 2 of our starbucks pastries had been eaten. we each ate one (a modest breakfast!) and left to go down tate's creek rd to 25 south through kentucky. after eating free all day (!!!) we made it to just outside of corbin, ky. we had ridden about 60 miles, which was great progress! we definitely felt really refreshed after the 2 days off in lexington. the sun was going down, and we were getting really tired, frantically looking for a place to stay. i asked a lady i saw in a pizza shop parking lot if she knew a place for us to set up a tent nearby. she asked our story, we delivered, and after telling us we were crazy, she called her boyfriend to see if we could sleep on their farm. though nervous, he conceded, and he picked us up a half hour later in a pick up truck full of mulch. we definitely smelled alcohol on his breath, and he checked both of our school IDs to make sure that we were legit. he was a big military man (a colonel somewhere) and played hardball with us to try to put us in our place. we backtracked about 3 miles to his farm, where they let us shower and gave us some leftover pizza. we chatted for a while, drank some beers with them, and they sent us to bed with an amber bock each. it was pretty awesome to lay down in the tent with a cold beer, sore body, and a full belly! the next morning, the lady (ilsa!) didnt seem to care for us much, so we were pretty quick to leave. the next day was pretty grueling -- lots of hills and the beginnings of mountains in southern kentucky. another day of free food (good for biking on a budget!) and it was getting dark when we were just in london. we pulled into a state park and the ranger told us it was $21 to camp. $21 to set up a tent on a small plot near loaded campers and trailers. no thanks! it wasnt even a pleasant environment. i asked, "we're kind of on a budget -- do you know anywhere around here for free?" to which he replied with a sneer, "you will find nothing for free." of course this fired me up to the point of having to prove him wrong, so kyle and i begrudgingly backtracked a few miles to a great field he'd seen. it turned out to be the side yard of a giant cookie factory! they wouldnt let us stay there because they had overnight operations. slightly dismayed with our luck and the setting sun, we got back on 25 south. i saw a nice house with a perfect yard, so i went to the door on a whim to see if we could set up tent. after a few knocks without answers, a man came to the side door and i timidly told him our situation, asking if we could maybe put up a tent near his side yard. he asked "are you honest people?" and after our answer yes, he told us we could stay. he was a very nice man! we asked if he preferred us to stay in the back or the side yard, and he told us he preferred wherever we'd be happy. awesome! we set up in the back yard. he asked if we wanted a pepsi or anything to drink, and we said yes, so he invited us into his kitchen. inside, he filled up a big container with cheese puffs, another with pretzels, gave us two bags of m&ms, four packs of peanut butter crackers (which we're still eating), four bottles of ale8, and a big bag of ghirardelli dark chocolate. we were in awe! he then said he was going out to dinner with his friend donnie leonard (kyles 2nd favorite personage on the trip, more details to follow), and invited us out with them. we declined, and he said he'd be back later, but to take full use of his patio, to make ourselves at home. did we ever! we set up our tent and loafed on his patio, charging our cell phones, calling friends, eating like kings (junk food dinner!), and reading. all was well, we left the next morning with full bellies, full bags of food on our bikes, and renewed energy. we wrote him a very kind thank you card, put it on his table, and went our way (thanks so much steve!). the next day, we did the dirty -- crossed our now haggard bicycles into jellico, TN. arriving in town, we saw a ferris wheel peeking its head over one of the hills. curious, we turned in and saw that we arrived just in time for the jellico city fair! a grand total of 3 rides, 3 games, 1 concession stand, and 1 below average cover band! we watched them play skewed covers of metallica, alice cooper (cause im 18!), and black sabbath. after snapping a few photos, we continued south on 25. unfortunately, it started to rain -- it had been ominous all day. pulling up to a hardee's for shelter, we immediately saw some girls working in there who were smiling at us. we went in, and kyle told them our story while i called my aunt marguerite. the girls were completely impressed! they said our story was like something out of a movie, that things like that never happen in jellico. they were very friendly, and started sneaking us food. twas a glorious evening! nice guy that i am, i helped them take out the trash. i talked a lot to one of the girls, whose name was kayla. she was so nice, and her accent was adorable (hi kayla! email me at joshuadaraja@gmail.com!). she even gave us half of her hershey's bar. not very democratic of me, but i ate the whole thing. anyways, aunt marguerite soon arrived to drive us over the mountains (thankfully!). we stayed the night and spent the next day at her house. she cooked us amazing breakfasts (i cant even describe it) and hung out with us all day. i spent a lot of time playing with her dog coco (so cute!) and reading. kyle did the same, charging our cell phones, reading, and playing with the dogs (she has 6). we went up to visit my dads cousin brandy and her husband david, where we ate homemade spaghetti and had homegrown cherries and plums. awesome! we got back to marguerites where we slept like babies. we were leaving early the next morning, and marguerite offered us a ride to caryville. dont mind if we do! she dropped us off, seeming a bit sad at seeing us go. assuring her that we were fine, we took off. we rode about 30 miles to oak ridge, where some burger king workers overheard our talking about our trip. evidently they were impressed, as they gave us some food! while eating, one worker, brenda (kyles #1 personage of the trip) came up and told us that everyone in the back was talking about us, and that she thought what we were doing was amazing, and that she'd love to buy us some apple pies. no problem! after eating them, she came up and said to us, "i dont know if y'all partake.. but how is the weed in ohio?" which sealed her officially in kyle's leger of local legends. riding on further, we came to kingston, where we stopped for some free taco bell. 6 burritos, thats fine with us! yes, thats plenty! we got up to leave, and after stretching, saw that my front tire was flat. the first one of the trip! we quickly patched the tube (about 15 minutes) and hit the road. we went another 20-30 miles down 95, 116, and 58. the sun was beginning to go down, and we were looking for a place to stay. a local cyclist (REB) pulled over and told us to take a right on gordon hollow, and left on river road, saying that TN 58 is too dangerous for biking, and that there was a big public access lake on river rd where we could surely sleep. after riding through some questionable routes, we arrived at the lake, only to find that it was all people's yards and private marinas. slightly disheartened, we stopped to ask a man in his driveway if he knew a place for us to set up a tent. he said the marinas have camping, but they would charge us, and that we could camp in his yard. awesome! his son got on his 4 wheeler and took us back to a spot by the lake (10 ft away, absolutely gorgeous!). i got a tick on my leg, which we took off with a military issue can opener (i love it!) and set up the tent. jared, the man's son, caught a turtle to show us, and then took us behind the shed to show us his pet chickens. cute! we went up to the garage to hang out with him and his dad for a while. his dad was a really cool guy, and we ended up chatting with him for a while. he said that he would kick dinner for us (perfect after all that riding!) and then let us showed. after eating, he gave us some miller lite. after relaxing for a few, he took us into his house and let kyle and i shower. while he was leading kyle to the shower, he asked us if we drank spring water. naively, we asked "spring water..?" as he took out a mason jar of homemade whiskey, screwed off the top, and took a sip. we passed it around, and it was the best whiskey we'd had! we told him so, and he said that he'd get us a jar to take with us. score! after showering and having a few more sips of the spring water, we hung out in his garage and chatted and listened to rolling stones. he was heading to bed, so he gave us a bag of chips and the mason jar of spring water and sent us to the tent. we walked to the lake and down to the edge of the docks, where we could see all the stars in the sky and the moon reflecting on the water, which had fog rising off the top of it. we dipped our feet in the shallow water, which was warm from being in the sun all day, and ate chips and drank spring water. it was probably my favorite moment of the trip, being clean and full, sitting in a beautiful environment with a great friend and drinking homemade whiskey from a mason jar. we went to bed and got up early the next morning only to find that my front tire was flat again! we took it off and reinflated it, and found that there wasn't even a leak! we reinflated it and havent had any problems since (knock on wood?). we rode all day, getting in another 50 miles. we stopped at a gas station where they gave us free sandwiches and a big bag of homegrown apples. yum! one lady even bought us a bag of spicy cheetos. awesome. they directed us to a cafe across the street where we could relax for a while before continuing on. after sitting there for about 20 minutes, the pigs (file under cops, tennessee's finest) show up at our table and begin questioning us. there were 2, one of which playing the hardass with an ugly sneer, and the other playing the happy go lucky, with a dopey smiley on his face. they took our IDs, questioned us for 20 minutes (why dont you just drive? you mean to tell me youre riding all the way from ohio to atlanta?). the pig with the dopey ass smile on his face came back with our IDs (that they had no right to take) and said "i really cant get anything on them.." to the dismay of his evil brethren. we were wrong to think itd end there! they then told us we had to leave now (despite our being paying customers) for causing a 'scene.' if anyone caused a scene, it was the cops, and i figured they should be the ones to leave! unfortunately, theres no reasoning with small men with vested power, so we conceded and took our sweet time to get out of there. outside, we heard them talking about their arrest quotas, both of whom were doing poor. they started buddying up to us, but we weren't interested in any of it. they told us to be careful out there, and i totally thought, "and you do the opposite." yada yada! we left and continued our trip. we rode another 10-15 miles, pretty mad at the situation. it turned out that customers had called the cops on us for 'looking suspicious.' dummies! the sun was giong down, so we pulled up behind a church to set up camp for the night. we ate the rest of our apples, called friends, and read until bedtime. we drank some spring water and went to bed around 10. we woke up early the next morning for the 30 mile ride to chattanooga. we got here, found a starbucks, and used the last of our gift card (woe is me!). we're now in the library on broad st, relaxing and emailing friends. tonight we're going to stay at a heather's house, where there are some punk/crust bands from minneapolis playing. we're leaving early tomorrow morning, and atlanta is only 90 miles away. we're planning on getting there in two days. awesome! we cant upload any pictures since we're at a library, but its okay. we'll put them up as soon as we get to atlanta. take care and please email us!

yesterday was a great day for rest! however, we got home and saw a forecast for thunderstorms today. we decided to stay in lexington for an extra day, given some other factors:

1) we're ahead of schedule due to the two rides we picked up

2) there's a show tonight at the house we're staying in

3) we don't have much sightseeing until we get to chattanooga in 6-7 days

as soon as we finish copying our route for the upcoming week, it begins to pour outside. we wait for the rain to die before heading out. when we do go out, there are big puddles inside our tent and the sleeping bags are wet. talk about discomfort! kyle slept on the very edge of the tent and i slept about a foot away. it was quite uncomfortable sleeping on a wet sleeping bag with puddles of water surrounding you on the tent floor. i woke up around 7 30 and walked around town for a few. i picked up a paper looking for a crossword puzzle, but it happened to be a wall st journal. yuck! it had tips on how to fold your clothes so that your closet would look like a retail environment. ew! yes, i would love to wake up in the morning and step into my closet, which looks and feels just like the local kohl's. anyways, ate some of our starbucks pastries (yum!) and read a bit. we just walked to the library again (thus the blogging), and we are soon going to go to the bike shop for chain lube and a spoke wrench, a used bookstore, a coffee shop, and potentially an art center. we may unfortunately buy food today, given that rain means soggy dumpster goodies and all the restaurants have heard our poor bike riders on a long trip sob story. oh well! tomorrow we're hoping to hit the rode early and put in 40-50 (maybe more? id love it!) miles a day until we get to chattanooga. a bientot..

hey all! its been a few days sans updates -- theres been less computer access than we'd thought.. we left kirk and julies in wilmington (thank you SO much for the hospitality! it was a GREAT start for the tour!) early sunday morning, with bellies full of homemade blueberry muffins and fruits. kirk dropped us off in mount orab, ohio, where we stopped to fill our water bottles in a mcdonalds (ew). we ended up talking to an older man who lived nearby who is an avid cyclist. he told us that 68 south is a good road to take all the way to the border, a town called "ripley." we followed his advice and took the road south. halfway down, we turned west into a sad little shopping center in the city of georgeville. we told the mcdonalds the classic line, "we didnt receive our large fries with our drive thru order," and kyle walked back to the table with an apology from the manager and a large fry. having eaten our fries, we talked to some local teenagers about maysville kentucky, where they were heading for the night. we walked across the parking lot to a pizza hut, giving them a sob story about these poor young adults having little money, riding bikes from springfield oh to atlanta ga. the manager gave us 5 breadsticks and some hot sauce (yum!) which we ate next to a local skatepark (score!). we tried again at long john silvers but the manager was a cold blooded dictator who charged for ketchup packets and offered no refunds on the quarter machines. we got back on our bikes and picked up 68 south again. we got to the town ripley at the ohio river. we stopped in a flea market for water, and ended up talking to a slightly eccentric, intelligent, poetic (!) former military man. after listening to several funny/entertaining/enlightening/scary life lessons, he offered us $12 to take a ferry across the river. his friend, who owned the restaurant, gave us a veggie tray and a cantaloupe. we thanked them profusely (really, how kind!) and loaded up the goodies on our bikes to hit the road. we rode down 52 east to cross the ohio river. crossing was amazing, a bit of euphoria as we rode into maysville kentucky. the town was very pretty, though we didnt stick around long. we continued riding, up to our first monster hill in kentucky. a bicyclist caught up with us and walked up the hill with us. he was very nice, gave us some advice, and was a good morale boost. we parted at the end of his loop, and he took our picture and took down our blog information. if you're reading this, hi jason! thanks a lot :D we rode on about 5 miles, and ended up camping in an older couple's front yard. we woke up early and ate a VERY modest breakfast at a park across the street. lexington was 59 miles away, which we naively thought we could make. we stopped at a shell station along the way to fill up on water. the cashier overheard our conversation and gave us free sandwiches. score! as we were leaving, a woman walked in and the cashier said "hi jana! what are you up to today?" and she replied "oh, im moving my daughter up to louisville..." kyle and i thought nothing of it, so we loaded up our bikes and hit the road. about 15-20 miles down, we were feeling pretty tired, so we stopped at another gas station, where we got a bunch of free sandwiches. we hung out there for about 30 minutes and left again for 68 south. here, the road got very dangerous. the hills got steep, and the shoulder disappeared. we were pretty fatigued and semi trucks were passing us 2-3 feet away. scary! we stopped to pull into a farm market to refill on water and rest. right as we were pulling in, jana (the woman from the shell station!) pulled in with her daughter following. she says "honey, get in the truck! this is a dangerous road!" and we loaded up our bikes (with some difficulty) into her pickup truck. we greatly enjoyed her stories about kentucky history as she drove us to lexington ky, where she was originally headed. she told us she normally wouldnt have stopped, had she not seen us in the gas station this morning. she even empathized with us for having ridden for five hours! she told us that 68S is a very dangerous road, with lots of motorist fatalities, let alone bikers! she dropped us off in lexington, where we stopped at a starbucks to use our gift card (thanks grandpa osborne.. haha). we ended up sitting there for 2-3 hours! we talked to the workers a little bit about our trip, and they were impressed. we called darin and lauren from 503 oldham ct (awesome people! sweet house!) to get directions. we rode bikes the few miles to their house when it looked like rain. we showed up, and the first question was "are you vegan?" followed by "do you get high?" fun times! we hung out for a few, and then left to go dumpstering at kroger's for some food. granted, it was still daylight, and great fun! we saw the dumpster was full of goodies, but lauren had no trash bags. we went into krogers and asked for some grocery bags (oh the irony!) and went out back to fill them up. we ended up with 13 ears of corn, and quite a few pounds of carrots, turnips, and parsnips. we drove home (with lauren and her kids in the car, how fun!) and boiled some corn and steamed the rest of the veggies. after a good dinner, we went to bed in the tent. we woke up relatiely sore, sunburnt, and tired. we both took showers (what a relief..) and boiled some corn on the cob for breakfast. not very filling! we then walked to a bike shop to get kyles derailleur worked on, but they were sorta pricks about it. we walked back to oldham since it was starting to rain and our clothes were hung on the line. by the time we got there, the rain had stopped, and we walked again to the university library. we looked up some bike route information to no avail, and we were getting very hungry. we tried to use our starbucks gift card in the university dining area (yeah, i guess we COULD have 2 muffins and 2 scones for lunch) only to find that they couldnt accept a gift card. hungry and slightly dismayed, we took the walk to downtown. after trying our sob story at a quizno's, a papa john's, and a cosi bread, we were ready to cave in and buy a meal or use up our starbucks card on more pastries. turns out we didnt need to! we walked to the quizno's and the la gourmet by the starbucks, where we got 2 free slices of pizza, 2 bags of sunchips, and 2 free cookies. still hungry, we bought 3 pastries from starbucks on our gift card. we then got free refills at starbucks, as we sat there for 4 hours drinking coffee, chatting, reading tolstoy and hemingway, and watching a young couple's life get ripped apart by a drug bust outside. hm. anyways, thanks to anyone who worked at the starbucks and put up with us during our stay there! it was great fun. especially thanks to DARLA, who was way nice and fun to talk to! :D we left the starbucks for the library, where we seemingly have found a good route from KY to TN to Ringgold GA, just north of atlanta. the library is closing, but here is a link to my photobucket where you can see not 1, but 54 photos of our trip thus far. enjoy, and please write back!

http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/joshuawalden/

yesterday was our first day on the road! after loading up the bikes, making last minute preparations, and taking some obligatory pre-tour pictures, we left for yellow springs ohio with amber jacks and jill potter. we made it in about a half an hour, and our friends from bellbrook met us there for lisa's birthday party. spinach and tomato pizza! yum. we then (naively) left for wilmington, which was another 30 or 33 miles. the hills were pretty rough, and we rode about 22-26 miles an hour down them, just in order to blast up the upcoming ones. we were close to oh 73 when another cyclist came up behind us, asking where we were going, and he gave us a shortcut route that took country roads. perfect timing, since the turn we needed to take was about 100 yards ahead of us! we finally arrived at kirk and julies, where we chatted for a few and took showers. two showers in one day for me -- hell has frozen over! we went out to a mediterranean restaurant and ate a TON! we came home, watched a movie, and slept like babies. this morning we woke up at 8 a.m. to a homemade breakfast. kirk is giving us a ride 30 miles down the road, and we're continuing on 68 down to lexington kentucky in the next two days. hopefully we'll have pictures in the next day or two!