Month: January 2017

What I Read | JANUARY 2017

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In January, I left my beloved library behind in the States, which was very sad.  But I also returned to twelve new books that I bought at a Christmas bazaar before leaving Athens last year, so it all balanced out (not really, twelve books does not equal infinite library access).

51t0npdw14l-_sy344_bo1204203200_We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This tiny book is adapted from a TedX Talk, and boy is it effective.  I mean, I guess she was preaching to the choir, but I found her balance of personal anecdotes and academic research very persuasive.  I would love to know if someone who is not a feminist could read this and come away unmoved.

hpHarry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Everyone already knows how awesome this book is, but do you know how amazing the illustrated edition is?  It has the full text printed like a children’s fairy tale book, and just holding the heavy thing in my hands made the whole story feel important and magical in an really evocative way.  The artwork is stunning, both familiar and unique.  I was especially impressed with how the kids looked like actual 11-year-olds.  I cannot wait to see what they do once they publish the fourth book in this format – will it come in two pieces or require a forklift?

the-geography-of-genius-9781451691658_hr1The Geography of Genius by Eric Weiner

This book combines three of my favorite things:  travel, history, and sociology.  Weiner visits several cities that were the birthplace of geniuses.  Some are obvious, like ancient Athens or Florence during the Renaissance.  Others I was unaware of, like Edinburgh and Hangzhou.  The whole journey is in pursuit of what creates genius, abolishing myths (the lone genius) and positing new theories (genius requires diversity, disorder, and discernment).

scrappy-little-nobody-9781501117206_lgScrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

The simplest recommendation is this:  if you like Anna Kendrick, you will like this book.  It sounds like her (especially if, like me, you listen to her read the audiobook version), both very funny and often insightful.  It is vaguely interesting as a child actor story, but that’s not its real purpose.  Instead, she’s doing what she does best:  entertaining us with stories.

27362503It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

WOW.  This book was recommended to me by a librarian friend, and it completely blew me away.  It’s all about breaking the cycle of abuse, but instead of being maudlin or overly dramatic, Hoover gives us the “best” case scenario and challenges us to empathize with people on all sides of the situation.  It felt incredibly weird to occasionally root for the abuser, but that’s the power of her storytelling capabilities.  And the ending was just beautiful.

51jqqolltjl-_sx329_bo1204203200_Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham

Once again, if you like Lorelai Gilmore – I mean Lauren Graham – then you will like this book.  And once again, I recommend you listen to the audiobook, which Graham reads herself.  I really admired that she knows her audience; she spent a little time on her childhood, but the bulk of the material lies in describing her experiences working on Gilmore Girls (and to a lesser extent Parenthood).  Her joy and gratitude are so evident, and it makes the book a delightful thing to experience.

51vf1u6wpfl-_sx326_bo1204203200_The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

I’m a full-fledged socialist now!  Russell’s description of being a British ex-pat in Denmark for one year totally converted me to the benefits of paying 50% taxes.  But seriously, her memoir/non-fiction story is really fun to read…just start saving for that plane ticket, because she’s hella convincing.

1618The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Although this is a great book written from the perspective of a teenager with Asperger’s, I never quite connected with it because it was not what I expected.  I thought I was reading a mystery, but that ends quite quickly, and I found the true story far less interesting.  Still, it’s a great piece for those who want a glimpse into inner workings of someone with Asperger’s, especially in making obvious just how much WORK every action and reaction is.

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #3: BACK TO GREEK and a VISITING TEAM

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Greek Lessons Part 2

fullsizerenderI re-started my Greek lessons this week!  It turns out that taking five weeks off from all things Greek (by returning to the United States) was very necessary for my brain.  And amazingly, I don’t think I lost any of my vocabulary or grammar!  I’m really grateful for Evangelia – she’s giving me lessons for free twice a week as her way of supporting HD.  And this year, HD paid for my textbook, so I have my own to write in (previously we were all sharing a book and had to write answers in a notebook, which just…didn’t work in my brain very well?).

All this is really great, because I’m using my Greek more to talk with the Greek-speaking participants at HD.  I stayed late with two of them on Friday, and the three of us managed to communicate for over an hour.  Not in anything resembling an intelligent conversation, but we got along and laughed and knew well enough what the other was trying to say.  I know I will eventually reach another plateau of “UGH GREEK,” but I plan to enjoy this period as long as possible.

Visiting Team

img_5276We had a team from the States come to HD for the week to teach us how to knit.  I spent the first day doing it wrong and hating it, and then the second day realizing my mistake and thinking “THIS IS SO EASY (compared to what I was doing).”  I love our Celebration Weeks when we get to hang out with the participants on equal footing – M and D latched onto knitting quickly and left me in the dust, which I think is a valuable thing for them to experience (and me, too).

I was thinking a lot about the nature of the teams that come to us, though.  Our participants are becoming more diverse – three different countries, three different languages, two different races, two different age levels – but our staff and volunteers are pretty universally white, educated, middle- or upper-class women.  I wonder how helpful it is for our women to see privilege, privilege, privilege all the time.

But then…how else is someone going to come volunteer with us if they aren’t privileged?  Not everyone can take a week off of work and afford to fly to Greece.  I don’t think there is an easy answer here, but it’s something I want to keep thinking about.

Friends

I didn’t do a lot socially this week – I worked late a couple nights, and I was especially drained from being Happy and Hospitable for our team.  Rosie came over one night, and we discovered a mutual interest in anime and Korean dramas.  She said she wanted to read something fluffy, and I hesitantly offered, “Have you tried…fanfiction?” and she said, “Oh, yes, of course,” and I leaped for joy.  Nerdy kindred spirits.

Speaking of nerdy kindred spirits, I went over to Luciana and Giorgos’s another evening to play Zelda: Twilight Princess.  We passed the controller between us, all taking turns and pointing out suggestions to each other, and it was so fun!

This will come into play more next week, but…I’m going to Romania!  Luciana and I were trying to go to Bredvoort (Netherlands) but tickets were too expensive.  I half-heartedly checked Ryanair for cheap tickets to anywhere and noticed €20 tickets (each way) to Bucharest.  “Do you want to go?” I asked Luciana and Olga.  They immediately wrote back yes, and I bought our tickets.  Within 30 minutes, I’d made weekend plans to visit Romania with two friends!  This is exactly the sort of European lifestyle I want.

Self-Care During This Political Chaos

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I almost always feel alone in my beliefs.  I’m too conservative for my liberal friends and too liberal for my conservative friends, but for one reason or another, I typically have more conservative friends than liberal ones.  A lot of the time, this doesn’t cause conflict, because although our politics differ, many of our goals and values are the same.  But the inauguration of the United States’s newest president is not ‘a lot of the time.’  So it is unfortunate that I currently find myself surrounded by conservative friends when all I want is to complain and cry and grieve that a racist, sexist, lying narcissist has been elected into my country’s highest office.  What’s a girl to do to take care of herself?

  • Snuggle with my cat; many faceplants into soft furry sides have occurred these past three days.
  • Watch A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, and remember that with intelligence, passion, and ingenuity, all sorts of horrible things can be endured.
  • Drink a class of wine, eat a piece of chocolate, and remember that good things exist.
  • Walk outside in the crisp air while listening to podcasts about God, feminism and/or Harry Potter.
  • Scroll through endless photos of women’s marches around the world and get excited about the fact that many a young girls’ career in politics is beginning today.
  • Talk to my female roommate and female friends about theology, about philosophy, and about psychology.
  • Write a message of gratitude to my brother, to my male friends, and to male celebrities who show support for women by joining in marches that do not benefit their exact experiences.
  • Get involved, by writing postcards to my senators so that my voice will be heard.  Too long I’ve tried to avoid being involved in politics, and look what happened.  Everyone needs to speak up, during elections and in between.  That means you too, dear readers, even if you are going to write in the exact opposite of my requests.

I’ve been sad the last couple days, but also inspired.  I feel alone, but in truth, millions of women all around the world marched to make their voices, and the voices of those who could not publicly join them, heard.  I stand with many brave, smart, sassy, angry, passionate, happy women who are going to change history.  This is going to be great.  Let’s not give up or shut up – we are blessed to live in a country that allows us freedom of speech, so for the first time in my life, I’m going to take advantage of that.  Tammy and Richard, I am so excited to write to you!

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #2: CANCELLED DUE TO SICKNESS

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I had such good intentions for this first full week in Greece.  I was headed back to work, and I had something planned for every night!  And then I caught this weird flu/cold bug that’s been going around Athens.

I spent all day Sunday and Monday in bed.  This illness was especially untimely because of jet lag.  I couldn’t sleep at night, and I found it all too easy to sleep until 5:00 p.m.  Nightmare.

By Tuesday I felt well enough to go to work, both because I wanted to and because I knew I had to break my sleep cycle.  It was WONDERFUL.  I got to meet our newest participants, I got caught up on everything from the past month, and I got to go to a bunch of meetings.  I love meetings, is that odd?

After work, I met Kendra for coffee to catch up.  She’s leaving Greece permanently-ish (the -ish is mostly wishful thinking) in August, so I was able to give her “how to take care of yourself while adjusting to the States” advice.  Then I bragged about how with DayQuil and NyQuil I had conquered my sickness in two days, and oh how sad that you are still sick with yours two weeks later.

On Wednesday I woke up feeling like death again.  I did go to work, where I talked so much that I lost my voice.  I did not go to Bible study that night, and slept all evening instead.

On Thursday I felt better!  Wow, it’s like there is a direct correlation between sleeping for massive amounts of time and feeling healthier.  I went to work and taught my favorite class, Self-Esteem.  We talked about the different categories of negative people in life.  Our newest participant said that she has a lot of Two-Faced people in her life, people who seem nice and friendly but who actually want to use her.  I pointed out that it must be hard to be at HD, because hey, we’re all acting nice and friendly, but why should she trust us?  She looked away, smiled, and said yes.  It is overwhelming, sometimes, to realize how much we ask of these women, and how easily it is to hurt them again.  They are so much stronger and more resilient than I will ever be, and I hope so much that my dumb selfishnesses will not hurt them more than my shaky love might heal them.

Since I was riding high, I went to book club with my friends.  We planned it back in December when a bunch of us went to a bazaar to buy cheap books and realized we all wanted to be in a book club.  Of course, because it is Greece, it took an hour for everyone to arrive (including one person getting lost, one rescue mission, and one car stalling in the middle of the road blocking twenty angry motorists).  Then we ordered food, spilled wine on a white tablecloth, Googled how to get it out with salt, and anyway it was 10:00 p.m. before we got to the actual book (Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton) part of the book club.

Surprise, surprise, my late night cost me big!  When I showed up to work on Friday, one of the participants told me in Greek, “You look horrible!”  It was both encouraging and discouraging that I understood her.  Luckily my coworker came to my rescue and volunteered to take my period later in the day, so I went home early and slept all day after cancelling my plans to see Rogue One (I am never going to see Rogue One, apparently).

On Saturday, Olga made me – oh wait.  I haven’t talked about Olga, my roommate!  She’s awesome.  For instance, she made me soup on Saturday for lunch, and when she came to tell me it was ready and found me asleep at 2:00 p.m., she waited another 45 minutes so she could eat with me.  She’d set up an adorable table setting and everything, it was so wonderful.

I cancelled more plans for Saturday night, but then Tatiana and Natasha (former roommates) came over.  We all talked for a couple hours, and when it got to be 10 I kicked them out because I was sleepy, but then Olga and I sat on the kitchen floor and discussed the theology of animal souls (my favorite topic, I cannot resist it!).  I have decided that this is a good friendship test:  if you have fun sitting on cold linoleum with them, probably they are a pretty good sort of person.

That was my week: high expectations rarely met.  But I’m so glad to be back, and I hope next week involves fewer sore throats and less sleeping.

Sunday Summary #52

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1|  If you can’t travel as often or as diversely as you’d like, all hope is not lost!  This article does a beautiful job of suggesting ways to bring the world to you.

2|  President Obama surprised Joe Biden by giving him a Medal of Freedom, and I legitimately cried.

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #1: I’M BACK

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Technically I haven’t been in Greece for a full week; just 48 hours.  But it already feels worth documenting, so here we go.

After three flights and nearly 24 hours of traveling, I arrived in Athens at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday.  Anthi picked me up, and as she drove me home, she filled me in on some more HD news.  Cool fact:  our newest participant is Muslim, so she doesn’t eat pork.  As mentioned in my last post, I’ve decided to give up pork this year!  Hopefully we can bond over this and find some food solidarity.

As I was unpacking, Anthi offered to pick up some groceries for me.  I requested cereal and milk for the moment, and she came back with that plus eggs “because I know you love eggs.”

My newest roommate Olga moved in on January 3rd, but she was at a friend’s house when I got home.  I was asleep by the time she came home, and now she’s spending the weekend at the Bible College, so I have yet to actually see her.  I’m excited to be housemates, but it was nice to have the house to myself for my first weekend back.

On Friday, I was SO PRODUCTIVE.  I did all the things I hate most:  paid a bill at the post office, walked down to Cosmote to ask about wifi plans, started a Word document of all the Greek vocabulary I learned last year, and…huh.  I promise it felt like a lot.

I went over to Rosie’s that afternoon to meet up with her, Kendra, and Danielle.  I felt closest to them during my time away, because we are all part of a “Parents of Furry Kids” Viber chat where we shared pictures of our cats for the last six weeks.  I also was reunited with Hans Harrison, who is SO massive compared to Rory.

Luciana and Giorgos came to pick up me and HH (so good to see them again!), and once again we dream-teamed the cat trapping.  Unfortunately, Hans Harrison seems to have associated Giorgos’s voice with trauma, because he hides whenever they’re around.  They stayed at my house for a while so we could all catch up.  They were hugely understanding of all my many feelings, and when I told them that due to visa issues I would be staying until at least April 2018, Luciana suggested, “So you’ve decided to live here long term?”

“I’m open to another two years or something.”

“No, like, long term.  Forever!”

“Hahahahhaa, commitment scares me, please stop.”

They left late, and I fell asleep not long after.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 5 am (jet lag!!), which caused Hans Harrison to run around, thinking I was getting up.  He tried to chew on his new collar and got his lower jaw stuck in the thing, causing me major panic as I tried to reach him under the bed and unsnap it as he gagged.  When I got it off of him, he practically burrowed himself into my skin as thanks, reminding me of that Aesop’s fable about a lion with a thorn in its paw.

I couldn’t go back to sleep for ages, and when I did, my alarm went off not long after.  I hit snooze for TWO HOURS and finally got up at 10:30 am.  I really hate jet lag.  Luckily, I did all the boring errands and all the fun friend-seeing yesterday, so I’m going to be as lazy as necessary today!

It’s really good to be back.  It’s really good to feel like I’m returning home – to my own apartment and to people who already know and love me.  What a difference this is compared to last year!

2017 New Year’s Resolutions

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I like the idea of resolutions, and as was pointed out by my friend yesterday, starting a new year on a Sunday feels all kinds of right when it comes to introducing new habits into your life.  A couple days ago I mentioned that one goal for this year was to travel somewhere alone, but I have two new habits that I also want to throw into the mix.

  1. Read the entire Bible using the NLT One Year Chronological Bible

    I bought this ages ago and read through it, though not in a year.  I love the translation being slightly off what I grew up on (NIV) and the way the pages are set up.  It all lends toward making the Bible feel more like a story rather than an instruction manual.  I’m two days in, and already I’ve been struck by how God, as revealed in the creation narrative, is creative, patient, and regenerating.  Which makes me think that as people created in his image, we also ought to be creative, patient, and regenerating.  It’s also fun to read it through my new lens of “this is probably poetry more than history” because I’ve got to tell you, it makes a lot more sense that way.

  2. Give up pork

    I’ve been flirting with the idea of becoming a vegetarian for a couple months now.  I just felt like it was weird that I love animals so much but don’t do any kind of reflection on how often I eat them.  I don’t actually think there’s anything morally wrong with eating animals, but I do want to be intentional about it and not just take it for granted.  Anyway, that’s a whole other conversation.

    I wound up realizing that there’s no way I can be a vegetarian because I barely know how to cook and feed myself in a healthy way, and I have no drive to cultivate culinary creativity.  I would wind up eating only power bars and candy and dying of whatever that causes.

    So my compromise is this:  no pork products!  Partly this is because someone told me pigs feel things more than other animals we eat, but mostly this is because I want to learn how to navigate the awkwardness of have food restrictions.  I want to sacrifice in a tiny way, and we’ll see what happens.

I’m always interested in stretching myself and trying new things.  The start of a new year is an excellent time to kick off those goals, though there’s no reason January 23rd couldn’t also be that day for you.

Or if you just, I dunno, want to stay the same forever, then I guess that’s cool too.  Ugh, that sounds like death, it is NOT for me.

Off to read the Bible and avoid pig meat!

Sunday Summary #51

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1|  Carrie Fisher was an amazing woman, and these 19 tweets complied by Buzzfeed honor her perfectly.

2|  Being “home” this month made me especially thrilled to read the Travelettes piece on the pros and cons of feeling at home, nodding furiously at everything they said.

3|  The best surprise!