So, in hopes that some random netizen in the blogosphere can help me track down the source of this rhyme, I’m going to type it out here. Anybody know where this is from?

The sun, I swear, it’s bleaching out my hair

The grass is green, it’s ruined my new jeans

34 to 24, I don’t even know the score

Go! Go! Fight! Fight! (Gee I hope I look alright)

I’m the best there’ll ever be

Now’s the time for victory

V-I-C–uh, what’s that letter?

YOU LOOK CUTE BUT I LOOK BETTER!!!!

Now imagine being on a bus full of teenagers shouting that last line back and forth at each other. Uh-huh. I think God called me to my brief tenure as a youth worker as penance, not because I was any good at it.

Anybody know where this rhyme is from? Thanks in advance…

Been laying low and attempting, unsuccessfully, to relax and interact with the world in a less pressurized way. It hasn’t really worked–the pressure is on more than ever–but it has made me realize a few important things in the first few weeks of the new year. I love to study and will probably wind up teaching sooner or later. I need a better job. I need to move, both in the short and long term. And I really need to make more youtube videos–positive ones. Speaking of youtube though,  I appreciate all the kind messages sent by you guys after my last one…thank you for your kindness and concern. I’m fine. Hanging in there. Trying to, anyway.

There are lots of things percolating in my head as usual, about things like human kindness, human arrogance, and the perils of growing old alone intentionally. However, today I just want to do something light and get out of my blogging slump.

See what it is after the jump…

I have a crafty blog for my etsy shop and through that, I’ve started following a few excellent craft and home bloggers. I really love those sorts of blogs–it’s nice to see people focusing on beautiful and lovingly crafted things in everyday life. One of those bloggers is AyanaRed, another is Elisabeth. (Both of these ladies have excellent, beautifully done blogs about crafting and crafters and life and I suggest you check them out. ) While catching up on my Google Reader feeds, I noticed that a while ago, these two both participated in a getting to know you tag/question meme…and Ayana ended hers with a global tag! Well, don’t mind if I do…

There’s a lot of rules and such that are a)irrelevant by now because I never really was playing the game and b)I’m not going to do because some of them aren’t really feasible(do I actually know 11 other bloggers to tag?). What I’m going to do is answer the questions. All of them. Here goes…

Peace y’all!

Turns out I’ve lost a tooth, some friends and quite a lot of faith and sanity this year but HEY! Not dead yet. Things can get better, and they will.

One of the things that helps me gain perspective when I’m feeling down is songs like this one…

Peace!

1) A long time ago I wrote a song, the chorus of which included the line “If no man is an island, why is everybody else in a boat?” It’s not the best song I’ve ever written, but is IS one of the best lines. Not to toot my own horn(or row my own boat?) but that’s exactly the flaw in Western mainstream cultures when it comes to the buzzed about “community”. Even if you decide to connect to others and live in an intentional, community-oriented way, the truth remains that most other people are in their own boats, forming their own islands, and don’t really want to be a part of a community in an active sense. It’s just not how we’re raised. If a pre-existing community comes along and serves needs, fine. If being in a community requires conscious behavioural change and understanding–back to the boats we go.

More after the jump….

2)This was sent to me by a fellow budding kpop aficionado…

Um…

No, REALLY, y'all.

*ahem*

3) As much as I love memes and all their instant inside joke-y goodness, I often find that there are tons of meme-worthy things that really only exist in my head. For example, whenever I write or speak about something I did a long time ago, in my head I instantly add, “a real long time ago…back in 1994!”. If you don’t get that(and you won’t) check out this Dave Chapelle skit and enter my self-referential post hip-hop world.

4)I’m trying to formulate my thoughts on this whole Occupy movement. That’s not an easy thing to do. I will say though, that there are a lot questions that I’m constantly asking that no one involved seems to be able to answer. Where is the political candidate who can turn these protests into policy? Who is supporting and formulating the legal changes that need to be made to return corporate law to the land of the sane and ungreedy? And even more importantly, are we, the 99%, willing to pay the necessarily higher prices and conspicuously consume less to support those corporations that decide to work without exploitation of workers? Were we ever? Are we now? Or do we just want our piece of the big greedy pie?

5) Okay, back to self-reference. I managed to make another youtube video!

It’s basically me mumbling and whining about other people’s insistence that me, or anyone with a definite belief system, is judging the world whenever they open up their mouth to say something definitive. That really, really grinds my gears. It’s a very human thing to have and share opinions. It is a human thing to have a wide variety of opinions, thoughts and feelings for a wide variety of reasons. When people who don’t like my, or anyone else’s, thoughts, feelings, and opinions immediately jump for the “judgemental fanatic” defense it pisses me off. Take some responsibility and stick up for yourself and what you think!  I will not be robbed of an element of my basic humanity just because YOU(generally) don’t want to think through your life choices and would rather go on the attack anytime someone says something remotely challenging, even if it originally had nothing to do with you.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I have made some very bad life choices.(I’ve made some good ones, too, though.) I have, and continue to, live with the consequences of those life choices and the opinions of other people. Are they judging me? Not necessarily. Are they allowed to share what they think? Yes! That’s called living in community with other people–if you open up your life to others, expect to hear about both the good and the bad. That’s the only way I expect to improve at this thing called life. And just as others are free to express disagreement and displeasure with me–I am free to express the whole gamut of emotions and thoughts, from happy and supportive to unhappy and unimpressed, with other people.

This is why we’re all paddling around in boats. And I know I said in the video I wasn’t going to bang on about it, but it really, really grinds my gears when people see judgment where accountability stands. Or even just diversity, shoot. It’s not always so deep as to include accountability. Sometimes, someone else just thinks differently. That’s not judgment. That’s just them!

6) To continue tangentially from number 5, I’d like to say that I don’t mean to say that there is no such thing as judgement. I have and can be quite judgmental, just like everyone else. (It’s that whole human thing, rearing it’s scaly fallible head again.) My point is that judgment and opinion are not the same and calling judgment where it’s not is a clever way to dodge personal and community responsibility.

Also, most unqualified judgments are silly.

A few examples:

OPINION: Blue is for boys.

JUDGMENT: Blue is for boys, therefore all girls who wear blue must be some kinda lesbian and are therefore going to HELL.

OPINION/FACT:  Ice cream gives me gas because I am lactose intolerant.

JUDGMENT: Those who like ice cream are biologically inferior and are therefore condemned to a living DEATH. Like HELL.

OPINION: Black men are beautiful.

JUDGMENT: Black men are beautiful, therefore every other man is unattractive. In fact, they look like HELL!

I am having entirely too much fun coming up with these, so I’ll stop there.

Today’s blog title comes from the one and only Sly and the Family Stone:

Peace!

Anyway, lately I’ve been having a lot of wildly contrasting conversations. People are just all very different to each other, and that’s that. The strange thing is, those differences all seem to emerge from the same motivations, ultimately.

On my twitter feed the other day, I posted this:

I’m starting to realize that for a lot of people belief=control. Doesn’t matter what the belief is in.

There were a few responses, but what prompted the tweet was talking to two very different people.

The first is a woman I’ve met through my theology classes–for those of you who just got here, I’m doing a degree in theology and I’ve met some very interesting people that way. Cross Wal-Mart with Lollapalooza, add a dollop of self-righteousness and a sprinkle of best intentions and you’ve got your average gathering of theology students, myself included. Anyway, this woman is a single mother, hasn’t been a Christian for too terribly long(I think a year or so) and is all about fear and legalism and using Christianity to fix her problems because she believes she’s screwed up her life. She believes in God because God provides a framework, a way to control a wildly unpredictable life.

As I’m sure you can guess, we got along great.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a little control over things. That’s a normal, natural part of being human. But basically, within hours of meeting for the first time, we’d discovered that we disagreed greatly on things like halal food, piercings, child-rearing techniques, multi-culturalism, and consumerism. When I say that “we’d discovered” I really mean “I discovered”. Sistah-girl was so utterly convinced that it was her way or the highway when it came to being a Christian that there was no room in her constant monologue for the possibility that she was terrifying me with each new sentence.

What got me wasn’t what she thought.  It’s a diverse world, and people have the right to think what they want. I also have(quite recently) developed enough sense to realize that just because someone believes in a way that I disagree with it doesn’t automatically mean that they haven’t invested just as much time and thought and interest in arriving at their conclusion as I have in mine.

What got me was that she fully expected her harsh, legalistic way of looking at the world to fix it. This is her way of imposing order and control on her life because it hasn’t turned out the way she wanted. She seems to believe that by looking at Christianity as a list of what not to do, her life–which she believes is totally ruined and in need of fixing–will be redeemed and reordered.

Well, shit. Can’t say I haven’t thought this way in my darker moments. But for the most part I’ve been free of such fictions, and boy am I glad. Folks, I’ve said this to many of you in person, and I’ll say it again in print: Christianity for me has never really been about the things I couldn’t do. It’s always been about the things that I can do. God is a God of possibilities, not denial. God is a God of authority, not control. God is a God of “go!”, not “stop!”.

This woman has a family. A nice, big, involved one of both blood and choice, if what she was saying was any indication. She’s got a career. A home. Good health and a lot of intelligence. What she’s cut herself off from is curiosity and the day to day enjoyment of life that the grace of God really opens us all up to. And all in the name of controlling the uncontrollable–life!

She stands in sharp contrast to another woman I know. This other woman is also a mother, also a Christian, enjoying her faith day by day, and one of the least controlling people I know. The reason she stands in contrast to my fellow student is that one of the first things she said to me was, “sometimes all the wrong choices lead you to the right places.” This second woman–a friend, I’m proud to say–has done pretty much everything wrong, in the traditional Christian framework.  She’s been in a bad, abusive marriage, gotten divorced, had two children while unmarried, abused substances, made stupid decisions, done ugly, rebellious things. But through all those bad choices, she has come to the right place. She’s married to a wonderful man(who, incidentally she met while formulating an escape plan from her previous abusive marriage. Funny how that worked out.) She’s got a beautiful home and family. She lives a gracious, gentle life which I, to be honest, envy a bit. Sure, she’s had some really tough times. There have been low moments, moments of angst and suffering, even when it seemed that things were otherwise going well. But outside of those moments–she is really living a full and prosperous life. She believes that at the end of the day, a loving God is in authority over her life–and will redeem her choices and her life because He loves, not because she behaves.

Now, does she sometimes wish that she hadn’t made those bad choices? Of course. Is she still dealing with some of their consequences? Of course. Does she sometimes wonder what could have been? Yes. But is she free of living in a restrictive, fearful way that only thinks of what could have been? Thankfully, yes.

When I look at my own life–in which I’ve done some things right, most things wrong, and many with the fear of divine retribution creeping around in the background–it isn’t my fellow student who I look to for encouragement as a part of the body of Christ. It’s my friend, who has failed big but lived well and overall, has understood through the ups and downs of her life that God’s grace is sufficient for her, because his power is made perfect through her weakness. 

Years ago, when I first started doing this crazy England thing(which was the either the end or the beginning of a string of bad decisions, depending on who you ask), I prayed a strange prayer. I simply said, “thank you, God, for teaching me that while I will never be perfect, you will always be.”

That’s grace, y’all. I live my life as a free and happy woman because I know that someday I will grasp this concept entirely. I only hope that my fellow student begins to experience it. I hope that my friend continues to live in it. And I pray that you and I, as I close this blog, do the same.

Peace!

OH wait, before I go…while The Gossip’s Standing In The Way of Control seemed like the obvious choice for today’s title quote, while I was listening to a few Gossip songs I rediscovered their tune Heavy Cross…an infinitely better choice if you listen to the lyrics…check out the video.

…aaaaand Beth Ditto is FIERCE! That is all.

Peace!

Moving on…

This year I’m really feeling the change of seasons. Usually I look up sometime in early November and quizzically ask when did autumn begin, but this year I’m not only noticing the crunchy orange leaves and chilly weather, I’m anticipating them. I spent most of last Saturday in a hibernating mood, making treacly autumnal ginger cakes full of orange peel and cloves and brown sugar. I’ve been walking a lot lately and noticing the chestnuts on the ground, their shattered spiky husks in piles along the sidewalks. (One thing that England does amazingly well is chestnuts. Just sayin’.)

All of this is accompanied by an Indian summer playlist, full of grooves meant to let me down easily from summer sun and tank tops into early dark and sweaters. There’s a lot of familiar artists on there…Common, Erykah Badu, Mr. Big, Page CXVI. There’s a few classic autumn albums, as well…Aretha Franklin’s Spanish Harlem and Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine both come to mind.

The one surprise fall musical find this year has been Urban Zakapa. They don’t seem to have an official webpage anywhere(although they do have a page on Facebook and a million links on Naver ), and I originally found them through this nifty feature on SeoulBeats. There’s a lot I could say to describe them musically, but thanks to youtube, I don’t have to. Take a look at this:

Now that is  perfect sipping-a-pumpkin-latte music, appropriately titled “Cafe Latte” in English.  The nine members of Urban Zakapa put this song out in 2009 and I’m kind of annoyed with myself for only discovering it now. Never mind that I don’t speak the language(yet). These guys are amazingly smooth, soulful, pop r&b with a jazzy flavor.

Oh, and speaking of jazz, check out Inevitability…

These guys are just on point. Vocally, instrumentally, they’re just impressive. And considering that most of my exposure to music from South Korea has been sugary kpop(which I have a grudging admiration for) or trot(which I kinda like and certainly respect more than kpop but TOTALLY don’t get), I’m glad to see that there is more musical diversity in the ROK than the first four pages of a Google search indicate.

I wish I knew more about the group to share here, but 95% of the info I can find is in Korean, which I don’t understand much of. The other 5% is lists of names and links to songs, much like what I’ve included here. Urban Zakapa seems to be the kind of band that lets their music do the speaking for them. Either that, or they’re not all that popular and therefore there isn’t a demand for info about them. According to their facebook they’re on tour, so I refuse to believe the latter explanation and will just blame my own poor language skills for not really knowing lots about them.  These guys are good, and I hope they’re getting the recognition they deserve for their musical prowess.

As I search around, I’m finding a lot of mellow, soulful voices and sounds in the world of Korean-language music and I have to admit it’s startling. Not because it’s Asians singing soulfully(anyone who, in this day and age, has the nerve to be shocked by the sight of a groovy singing Asian man has obviously never been to California…they’re EVERYWHERE. Kinda like harmonizing white chicks in England…). I guess I find it surprising because a lot of the more soulful strains of music from South Korea sound a LOT like the R&B music I grew up listening to in the mid-90′s. There’s a few points on the Urban Zakapa(어반자카파, by the way, in hangeul) album where I found myself saying Babyface? Is that you? Tony Rich, honey? Where you been? (It’s a spurrilous Black People Connection, but I’m claiming it anyway.)  It’s familiar, but in a nice way, and I kind of wish that the English speaking market would follow suit and produce more bands like this. Heck, I wish the Korean speaking market would produce more bands like this. I don’t want any more autotune, no more cliched power to the sistah tracks, no more pathetic attempts to be down with the people while still selling to the other people. At the very least, I just want some new nice songs about love and poetry, sung by people who know how to interpret a lyric and played by people who know how to swing.

Good grief, I sound like an old lady in that last paragraph.

In any case, it’s good music. It sounds familiar, it’s smooth, it’s pleasant. Also, although I have no idea what a Zakapa is or what “Urban” connotes in their market, I like their name.

One more song, then I’d urge you to go here and consider spending some cash on the bands album, 01.

This one’s probably my favorite…and it’s the source of today’s title…

Peace! (Paix!/평화!)

That secret is the emotional tailspin the “Emergency Contact” blank on a form can send you into.

Read more after the break…

Anytime I’m confronted by a job application, medical history, registration form  or insurance questionnaire that asks me to provide the name and number of someone who would be able to make informed medical decisions in the case of serious catastrophe, I break down a little bit. A part of me goes into the back room of my brain and wails out a lamentation-style pity party dirge, while the rest of me is smiling and trying to think who on earth can I possibly put in that blank?

Now some people have very supportive, loving communities. Some people have very materially substantive lifestyles. Some people have both. You don’t have to worry about those two words and a blank. But I am basically on my own. I live paycheck to paycheck while I finish my degree. And the words “emergency contact” strike fear into the depths of my soul.

Who, I wonder, is going to know what the signs are if I have a relapse? Who knows that I am allergic to penicillin, averse to steroids, and extremely sensitive to pain medications? Who can I trust to fight not only for my life, but for the quality of my life, if I get ill and require drastic treatment? It’s no big secret that the poor often get treatment that save their lives at the cost of significant quality factors. I don’t want to be porting around a colostomy bag, a crooked skin graft or a missing body part simply because I was too unconscious to say hey! What are the other options??

Who can I trust to actually read and understand all of these things if write them down and carry them with me?

The thing is, I think I’ve been very blessed in finding community wherever I go. I think that the people around me, no matter how close or far they feel, wouldn’t let me die for lack of knowledge about me. But I also know that you can’t make someone love you like you love yourself, and often fear and unfamilarity breed awkward decisions. The people who love me, while I love them as well, are not invested in my life to the extent where I feel comfy putting them down as emergency contacts.

So, when I look at the emergency contact blank, I think of all these things. I think that there is no one on earth I trust enough to make the same bad decisions I’d make. And I put down my grandma in the US, who is getting a little senile these days but can at least be counted on to yell at the doctor like I would, and then tell my parents if I die.

Today’s quote comes from here:

So here’s the deal…I’ve had houseguests, flu, health scares, training for my new job, bad dates, and loads of other excuses to deal with. Also, I’ve got about six drafts of blog posts on subjects other than travel percolating in my dashboard. Also also, I’ve done more traveling and have more travel freewrites than I originally planned for.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m going to continue doing travelogues as a regular thing but intersperse them with regular posts. Or as regular as I ever get. Anyway…without further ado, Budapest, Hungary.

I don’t want to leave this city. Beautiful blue Danube.

Asian white folks? Goulash. Spicy pork. Grilled shark. South African mathematicians. Franz Lizt. Staged piety.

Für Elise. Postcards. Great metro system. Big bridges.

Trofea. Good tap water. Good wi-fi. Inexpensive. Nationalistic pride. Languages. Too bloody tired to write more…

Today’s title comes from here:

…the famously familar piece written by Beethoven for his Hungarian paramour. (That is, if you ask Hungarians.)

And although this has absolutely nothing to do with today’s content, the title comes from here. What can I say, I was a teenager in the 90′s like a lot of you were…

Eating dried mango in a sleeper car. Nuclear freaking heat. The Palace of Culture and Science. The synagogue. A lovely couple from Lyon. Being grouchy from traveling badly. The mall.
A Polish Chicagoan. Fizzy water. 5-star Polish restaurant for 228 zlotys. Lovely, happy chef. Chopin. More amber. A green Polish pedicure.

A Korean-Japanese gentleman named Im. Chinese Hungarians on the train platform. Rude train lady. Syrenas. Surprising amounts of diversity. Italian food everywhere. Strong coffee. Bad pizza. Homesick. 

Kind people helping with the language. White sleeper car sheets(again!). Bouncing. Changing clothes in the top bunk while a friend stands guard. Dead phone. Strange stares. Lovely people. Grim city. Good night!

Today’s musical connection for the title was quite hard to come by…the first thing that came to mind was David Bowie’s” Warszawa”:

…which doesn’t exactly have the most accessible lyrics.  So, I went with Joy Division’s “Warsaw” instead. It may or may not have anything to do with Warsaw, but it does have lyrics…