Not just my personal diary: How blogging is helping to shape the human experience

Image from firehow.com

I remember watching the internet grow and mature. I did a lot of growing up myself during the same time. I remember carefully considering how I should represent my personality with a new Myspace layout or “about me” section, and taking a million selfies so I could rack up more photo comments. I remember the debates about social media and how dangerous it could be. I remember finally giving in and getting a Facebook even though it wasn’t as cool as Myspace simply to keep up with some of my home school friends who weren’t allowed on other sites.

And I remember thinking that a blog was a pretty pointless and even conceited thing to spend time on. I mean, really...no one wants to know about your day or what lyrics you really relate to right now other than your mom. Even your top friends are only reading out of obligation.

But all things change, and at an ever increasing rate in our modern world.

These days, the internet is constantly at our fingertips and we are constantly making use of it. Information is only a Google search away and updates on distant loved ones show up in our Facebook news feeds!

Thus it was a no brainer for me to start a blog while traveling last year. I knew I would have plenty of stories to tell while teaching English in the post-Soviet developing country of Georgia. Stories that wouldn’t fit into a status update. And did I ever! There was the time I gotpunched in the face by a three year old, the time I assumed we were going to a school meeting and didn’t realize it was actually a visitation until I walked in and saw the body, the time I went camping in an old hippy bus with a handful of other twenty-somethings from a handful of different countries...the list goes on. It was the most amazing adventure I’ve yet experienced.

And I had the ability to share any of it through my blog-any of my encounters with language and cultural barrier, any of my struggles to shake off their limited views of what a woman could be, any of the moments and any of the people who made the hard times completely worth it. I was excited and proud to paint these pictures of a piece of the world-of the human story, even-that many of my readers would never experience firsthand.

Then, after coming back and starting my career as an archaeologist, I had more stories to tell. And then I started using my blog as a platform for discussing the social issues that had been brought to my attention more than ever in Georgia, but that I was still encountering in my beloved home country. Feminism and racism weren’t just topics for me to rant about to whatever poor soul was nearest to me. I realized that I could contribute to the conversation on a broader level.

And this is the power of blogging: the power to share stories and information with other people who will never meet you, read your local newspaper, or listen to your local news station. If you have the motivation to compile information and the skill to craft it into a readable format, you have the power to share it. No need to hope the editor of the local newspaper will like it and no pressure to put enough stuff together to have even a chance at a book deal.

And then you can share it, and it has the potential to be seen by people all across the world who would never know that your local newspaper even existed and who would never happen upon your book, let alone spend money on it. When you think about it, blogging is actually becoming a very useful exercise of the human faculties.

However, I often still detect the old attitude hanging in the air. We bloggers can often tell by the expressions we are met with when we mention that we blog and offhand comments here and there that our hobby (or, sometimes, profession) is still seen as completely irrelevant to the modern world. But I insist that it is one of the most relevant hobbies or professions provided by the world wide web.

As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed that people share blog posts quite frequently without seeming to realize that that’s what they are. Next time you’re reading an “article” or “opinion piece,” look and see if it’s actually a blog post. Even big think tanks often have paid bloggers on staff and/or are happy to accept relevant and well-written guest posts. The Huffington Post, for example, relies heavily on contributions from the blogging community. Especially if you’ve ever shared a “X reasons why...” or “X ways to...” article, you’ve probably shared the home-spun work of a blogger.

Never in the history of humanity have we been so connected. Never in the history of humanity has information been so readily available. And never in the history of humanity has the common person had so much power to contribute to global conversation. Blogging is art, philosophy, politics, adventure, and more...but by the people, for the people. And that means that us common folk can have an effect on the way that humanity sees itself and the world around it! And if you ask me, it doesn’t get much more relevant than that.

What do you think? Are blogs making an important contribution to the development of human society? Or are they still pretty pointless? 

Teach and Learn Orientation, Spring 2014

As I write about my experiences here in Georgia, I must confess, I’ll be giving you a censored version. Yes, this is my story, but the other characters involved are real people who do not want their names or lives plastered all over the internet. At the same time, I’m not going to fabricate an experience which isn’t the one I’m having, and I’m not going to leave out many (if any) situations which I find integral to it. So those who read my blogs from afar will have to excuse my being vague at times; and those featured in it (should they even know English or someone who does), will have to excuse my honesty.

Orientation Training Week:

By just a couple days in, it feels like this my life. It feels like I know these 20 people, but not like I just met them. It feels like I’m subject to this schedule, but not like it’s something different. This just….is.

We are learning way too much Georgian in our language classes to remember, but I know that only those of us who make the effort to study consistently on our own will get past the basic tourist-guide-book phrases.

Our intercultural training and methodology lectures have some interesting info but can be very boring. It’s funny how sitting in a chair all day can drain you.

The hotel feeds us three times a day, and it’s all REAL food. Bread, cheese, and meat seem to make an appearance at every meal. Which is great, but does get monotonous. But oh well. We are told that there won’t be a huge variety of menu options in the villages either, so I suppose we might as well get used to it now.

We also explore Tbilisi in the evenings. We ride a tram up a mountain to a small amusement park. It’s covered in snow and abandoned for the winter, and in the dimming light it’s wonderfully eerie.

Another day, we explore a park. It’s modern and artistic, with the brick path coming up in swirling mounds every here and there. But at the back we find a very post-soviet feeling block of concrete. Like, seriously, it’s a huge concrete cube with many openings, including two huge circles on opposite sides, and slits on the floor through which we can see that the ground is far enough away to make for a deadly fall.

Another time I’m able to meet up with a skype friend I met online. Yes, he turned out to be a real 19-year-old Georgian university student, just like he was on skype. We walk a ways down the road and stop in front of a monument erected for those who died in the 1989 protests. His parents were there. They took part…saw the tanks, heard the chaos. It blows my mind to think about. The biggest protest I have been a part of was a counter protest when Westboro Baptist came to my uni. We stood across the road and sang happy songs at them.

On Valentine's Day, a bunch of us head to a bar/restaurant on the same block as the hotel for a traditional Georgian dance. When we get there, it’s almost empty, and although there are some young men with instruments, there is no dancing. We end up asking the waitress if someone can show us….and to our delight, a young man and young woman who work at the restaurant come dance for us. And then to our further delight, a guy dressed in a weird woman-suite (I have no other way to describe. Look for the video and you will see!) comes and joins the dance, and even dances with myself and another tlger. They give us a bottle of wine after 10 because we “won a game,” aka are the only people still there; and they light two heart-shaped lantern candle things. Already jolly from wine, all but the Irishman head to a club for some dancing. Its great fun, but we end up leaving when we’ve had enough of this local guy who seems to know English with the exception of the phrase “she doesn’t want to dance with you.”

The last note-worthy excursion is a trip to a local bar…the artsy bat where the stoners hang out. A VERY unique look at a VERY small part of Georgian society. I’m there with a few guy friends, and although I’m ready to go back at midnight so I can get up for class in the morning, they are in the mood to party all night. I can’t go into details for their sake, but I want to give you a taste of the real-life intercultural training we received that night by giving some quotes from people we met:

~

“I do NOT need a Georgian man. I know Georgian men. When I was seventeen, I was married to a Georgian man. He is in jail now. My father is a Georgian man. My brothers are Georgian men. I do NOT need a Georgain man.”

Here I will also note that in a culture where women are expected to be virgins until they are married, shooting for a one night stand may get you into an uncomfortable situation with a drunk girl who thinks she is your girlfriend.

~

“That was my mom calling me. She wanted to check on me.”

“At 2:30am? How old are you?”

“I’m 21. It’s just the way Georgian moms are. If I am with a friend of a friend of a friend, she will call HIM. And I am like, how the f*ck did you find me???”

~

”Weed grows wild here. You’ll find it everywhere. It’s really easy to get. But if you get caught, you can go to prison for 8 to 9 years.”

~
”I am traveling from Turkey. I translate for Greenpeace. But I just wanted to go out for a while. There are protests there now because the government shut off the internet. They claim it was because the people were using it to watch porn!”
~

So yeah. That’s over  a week of TLG and Tbilisi smushed into one post . I hope the pieces I’ve given you are poignant enough for you to get a good taste!

(Dark) and Early

February 5th, 2014, Hawaii.

3:20 am

My alarm finds me and my cousin practically spooning. Even half awake, I it find amusing and fitting, considering that for the past month I’ve been poking fun at her for taking up so much space in the bed. Sometimes she would cuddle in her sleep, other times I barely escaped an elbow or hand to the face. I allow myself to hit snooze once, knowing at 3:30 it’ll be time for a quick shower…my last chance to feel fresh before my 32 hour trip.

4:00am

Taking care of me until the very end, my aunt fixes me breakfast while I pack up my computer and gather up all the layers that I know will suffocate me when I walk out into the warm Hawaiian night, but that I’ll be glad for when I’m freezing in Tbilisi.

5:00am

There is a man assigned to weigh bags before passengers head to the desk to check them. Good thing, too, because one of mine is 57 pounds. Thankfully my smaller bag has room to shove in a few things, though I have to sacrifice a water bottle. I hope some hobo picks it up.

5:30am

I see a rucksack sitting in front of a seat and a head of long dirty blonde hair sticking up over its back. I wonder if they belong to the adventurous type who might be headed to teach in Georgia. Then I notice two fedoras in the seats next to it, which lead me to think I am simply looking at a group of adventurers who came to enjoy Hawaii. When I come back from the bathroom I sit where I can see them from the front and feel that my second assumption is valid.

Rucksack guy has a tattoo sleeve down his left arm and a very distinct “I don’t give a %$#@” expression. The two fedoras are smiling about something. One has black hair to his shoulders and looks like he could be in a band with rucksack guy, and the other kind of reminds me the people I met at college who were known for playing Magic the Gathering for hours on end in the student center.  I notice that the fedoras both have red passports. I can’t help but wonder where they are from, but I don’t feel like making an excuse to strike up a conversation. After all, when you’ve been up since an ungodly hour of the morning and will be traveling until another ungodly hour of a different morning, you don’t feel like making much of an effort for anything.

4 Things You Didn't Know Were "A Thing" in Hawaii

Surfers? Check. Pineapples? Check. Ukuleles? Check. But here are a few things I didn't expect to find while visiting family on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

1) Asians. Lots. And lots. Of Asians.

The most prominent people group in Hawaii consists not of Native Islanders, nor of white mainlanders. Rather, nearly 40% of the total population is Asian! 

Only 9% of current Hawaii residents are Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders. And yet native words and motifs are used everywhere. You'll very rarely see "thank you;" it's always "mahalo." And everyone seems to enjoy making jokes at the expense of us "haoles." I can't help but wonder if those of native descent are honored by the fact that their culture is staying in style as they fade away. Or, rather, are they insulted that all these people who contribute to its disappearance are so desperate to identify with it?

Sorry, that was a little deep. Either way, where back in Arkansas I would expect to see many signs and instructions written in both English and Spanish, here they are written in English and Japanese. And there are plenty of options for sushi!

                                                   

For the stats listed above and more go here:
http://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-hawaii.

2) Spam Musubi.

As further evidence of the Asian influence, this interesting snack has shown up everywhere. It's a regular at my little cousins' basketball games...on the snack shack menu right along with burgers and hotdogs. I've also seen it in actual restaurants.

I guess you just take a slab of spam, place it on a well shaped chunk of sticky rice, and wrap it in seaweed. Yes, I tried it. A few days ago I even had a hankering for it. Yum!

                       

3) Kendamas

This traditional Japanese toy has apparently spread like wildfire through Hawaiian schools in the past couple of months. The kids take them everywhere. Some schools have even banned them!

I made a short vlog showing how they are used, but Blogger and my computer don't want to agree and upload it directly to this page. So here is a link to it on the Unsettled Voyage vlog page:

Kendama Krazee

4) Slitted Windows

I'm not sure if there is an official name for these, but they are pretty standard in Hawaiian homes. Not surprisingly, air conditioning is NOT a thing. It really hasn't been so bad, though. I prefer being hot to being cold and I rather like the outdoor air circulating through the house!

Anticipation...(TLG) is keeping me waiting!

I arrived in Hawaii on the 7th. Today is the 27th. I won't even get my ticket for Georgia until Wednesday the 29th or later.

Don't get me wrong, there are worse places to be stranded than Hawaii. I really love it here. And there are worse people to be stranded with. My aunt and her family have been fantastic hosts, housing me and feeding me plenty longer than they had signed up for.

Still, the longer I wait, the harder it gets.

After all, I'm waiting for the next big experience in my life to start. And I can't know exactly what it will be like until I am there...living in a country I've never been to with people I've never met who mainly speak a language I'm only beginning to learn. All I know is that my world will be different while I'm there. And I'll be different when I leave.

I've Got (One) Ticket to Paradise!

So by the end of January, I’ll be in Georgia (the country) settling in for a year of teaching English.  I had decided to use a soon-to-expire ticket credit to visit family in Hawaii first and fly to Georgia from there. Now the program I am working for, Teach and Learn, is having to find a new insurance provider. Bad news? I have to wait even longer to get a better picture of what the next year of my life is going to be. Good news? I’ll probably have at least one extra week in paradise.

And Hawaii really is paradise. 

It’s totally different from Arkansas, yet it feels familiar somehow. Something about the air reminds me of Japan, and the exposed rock of the cliffs jutting out into the water reminds me of Ireland.

 Or perhaps there is just a certain magic that lingers on all islands.  

I flew into Honolulu, on the Island of Oahu. Even with all of the traffic and skyscrapers that accompany human modernity, the island is green and lush. More variations of palm trees than I even knew existed grow throughout the island, even downtown. The sky overhead is a bright and healthy blue with fluffy clouds rolling in from over the ocean.  

Ah, the ocean. It’s gorgeous! From up high, the water is a deep blue that fades into brighter shades as it nears the shore. From up close, you see that it’s really clear. Crystal clear. Even when the sand is stirred up and the waves turn brown, they aren’t a mucky brown like in a mud puddle or pond. It’s more like seeing clouds of brown sand being gathered up and carried to the shore by the clear water.