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This is my travel blog.

housefullness

Back from the Plunge. This completely fails to sum it up properly, but it was a really great experience. Needless to say, I learned a lot and made a lot of great new friends. I especially bonded with Sarah (the Plunge coordinator) and Clare (another one of the day leaders), both of whom were closest to me in age. I really enjoyed hanging out with all the kids too: they were all really positive and enthusiastic, especially in my group. We did all kinds of different placements during the week, like cooking and serving lunch in the Clark Center (men's shelter), weeding in the community gardens at the Oregon Food Bank (we did a lot of weeding this week, it feels like), and working at Sisters of the Road, the downtown cafe on 6th and Burnside that I had heard about but had never visited. I highly recommend it: there's a really great community atmosphere and the food is good and cheap ($1.25 for a meal and a drink). They have an interesting system where people can get barter points for meals by working at the cafe, so it's a much different atmosphere but the traditional paternalistic church-charity handout.

I think I did a pretty good job as a leader. Our group name was "The Sensational Six Power Plungers Exclamationpoint!" (in our cheer, I got to say to "Exclamationpoint!", in a style reminiscent of Kool-Aid Man). I got us lost basically every day (thank you trimet for telling me to "walk southwest" when I have no idea what that means). We also burned everything we cooked for dinner the one night it was our turn to prepare it: the pancakes were black, the hashbrowns were gray (apparently a result if the potatos are wet; my fault for washing them beforehand), and the sausages were raw in the middle. The only thing we didn't ruin was the soy yoghurt and granola for the vegan girl. We had a great time together, though. There was one afternoon where we all panhandled down by Powell's and Whole Foods, and this girl from my creative writing class gave us all the change in her pocket. When she saw me holding my little "LEARN TO LOVE BEFORE IT'S MADE ILLEGAL" sign slumped against the wall, she was like "JULIE" and I was like "hey, I graduated from Reed!" because it all seemed a little too complicated to explain right then and there. I'm sure I must have seemed like an excellent epitome of the post-grad lifestyle.

Apart from the small group placements there were some activities that we all did together (25 kids--I mean, students, in total), like a tour around Old Town to see where all the differents services, or our last placement, a visit to the Volunteers of America men's rehab shelter, where they send men who just got out of prison or rehab and need to learn how to be members of society after spending thirty-forty years being addicted to drugs or a life of crime and so forth. I was pretty nervous about going there because I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of guys there had been sent for prison for certain acts of violence; namely, rape. But it turned out to be the best experience we had all week: we participated in a neighborhood clean-up with the guys, picking up dozens and dozens of cigarette butts off the little side streets stemming off of MLK, and then had a giant BBQ together. It was really fun. I got asked for my number twice so that was a little uhhno. But it was really interesting, getting to spend a day talking to people whom society has basically told us to completely give up on. Everyone I met was really sweet and polite and I enjoyed talking about football and basketball with them. I even got offered a job by the VOA program director, who told me "if you're thinking about a career in social work, give me a call if or when you get back." That felt pretty good.

More than anything else, what I really enjoyed during the week was walking and taking the bus around all the Portland neighbors I am so unfamiliar with: all of NE and N Portland, basically. We were staying in St. Francis, the church with the big park on 12th and Oak. I remember hanging out there summer freshman year at the VOZ office but I completely failed to make the connection that it was the same place until I got there. Basically, this was the first time I felt like a Portlander rather than a Reedie, and it was really nice. Also, I know I told everyone beforehand that the point of the Plunge was to "live like a homeless person" but I really need to correct that and apologize for it right now. Basically that was a really offensive statement on my part: it wasn't a week about trying to "understand" or "know what it's like" to be homeless or poor or recovering from addiction or mentally ill in Portland, it was more about getting a clearer picture about certain issues that have to do with urban poverty and getting to hear some stories that could be pretty intense at times and meet some people, most who were nice and some who were mean but all who were worthwhile. There are a lot of really lonely people out there...

So it was a very interesting week with a lot of intense conversations but I feel bit deep contemplative-out right now. It was really nice to sleep in a bed last night, and it was great seeing Corey again. We have a lot of packing to do: basically, everything. And so much laundry. And I have to return all those overdue library books. Plus this computer. And e-mail people who aren't here and see people who are in order to say goodbye. I don't like goodbyes, I like see-you-laters.

I feel it's fitting to end with the closing words from Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, which I used in the group discussion/reflection I had to lead on Thursday, with the theme of social justice:

"My story ends here. It is a fairly trivial story, and I can only hope that it has been interesting in the same way as a travel diary is interesting. I can at least say, Here is the world that awaits you if you are ever penniless. Some days I want to explore that world more thoroughly. I should like to know people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the moocher, not from casual encounters, but intimately; I should like to understand what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and Embankment sleepers. At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty.
Still I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning."

I like beginnings!

interesting passage from "war and peace"

“What have you attained with the guidance of the intellect alone? What are you? You are young, you are wealthy, you are cultured, sir. What have you made of all the blessings vouchsafed you? Are you satisfied with yourself and your life?’

‘No, I hate my life,’ said Pierre, frowning.

‘You hate it, then change it, purify yourself, and as you are purified, you will come to know wisdom. Look at your life sir. How have you been spending it? In rioutous orgies and debauchery, taking everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have received wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for your neighbors? Have you given a thought to the tens of thousands of your slaves…No. You have profited by their toil to lead a dissipated life. that’s what you have done. Have you chosen to taken part in the service where you might be of use to your neighbor? No. You have spent your life in idleness...There is no wisdom in all that, sir.’”

[courtesey of elyssa!]

I had a really good night tonight!

I think the whole feeling-kind-of-down after graduation thing has a lot to do with just learning how to manage a lot of free time, something I've never been very good at. It's important to remember that this is my Vacation! and my Time Off! and lord knows when I'll have this kind of free time just to read and loaf around again. Here are some things that have made me very happy in the past week since I've returned from Connecticut:

- First Thursday with Tanya (graduate student from Corey's lab) and her husband, this amazing incredibly funny guy from Turkey who works as a professional photographer. Dinner with them at the Virginia Cafe and walking around visiting the different art galleries was really fun. It was really nice to be out and social with so-called "grown-up" people as opposed to just other college students, i.e. Reedies.
- checking out books about liberation theology from the county library and writing down graduate schools. Today, Comparative Literature, tomorrow, Creative Writing! (hey, I've only been out of school for three weeks, a girl can dream...)
- finished and submitted application for Americorps position with SE Works for the hoo-hah of it. I was upset about all the typos in my outgoing e-mail but got a very friendly-souding follow-up from them so I don't think that's a problem.
- Reading Down and Out in Paris and London and a collection of interviews with Portland's homeless in preparation for the Plunge. Very interesting. Oh, that Orwell.
- Lauren's birthday party on Friday! She's basically my primary friend left in the Portland area now, besides Eira... Also going to the coast this Saturday this Corey: one of the professors from the biology department at PSU has a house there and is going to host a huge clam bake. We're bringing our tent and sleeping bags and plan to camp out on the sand. I also want to watch at least one NBA playoff game with my brother, who is normally so busy with classes, hopefully Sunday...
- Long walk with Corey on Tuesday down Springwater trail, looking for mushrooms, finding mainly LBMs (little brown mushrooms) on people's lawns. The crazy-looking petal-shaped mushroom I found a couple of days ago which I got really excited about because Corey couldn't identify it turned out of to be a lichen. Oh, well. We wandered for ages and ended up on Milwaukee and at sushi at that place on Bybee that always has a really long line. BEST SUSHI I've ever had in my life. I'll definitely have to take my parents there, if/when/who knows they move here.

Corey just drank just gin by accident instead of water. "It kind of tasted like a pop tart," he says. I really want to go to bed...
Trying to keep in mind main message of book "Man's Search For Meaning," or at least the main message I remember from the concentration camp bits (I didn't really read the logotherapy bits, wasn't interested): we can't choose what happens to us, but we can always choose what attitude we want to adopt in face of what happens to us...

gradumudukated

"It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs--and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of the anxiety."
-- George Orwell

I'm back in Portland. Saw Obama speak in Connecticut during my sister's commencement. I'm well and gradumudacated, as they say. My closest girlfriends have left and scattered, Emily and Cara in Southern California and Laura in Tanzania.

I feel incredibly, woefully unprepared, in terms of doing "grown-up things" such as figuring out health insurance (my mother's biggest fear). There are some days where I feel so smart and mature--like the way I dealt with my dad's relatives in Connecticut ("you were very chatty," he complimented me afterwards), or the way I chatted and made friends with the girl sitting next to me on the flight back to PDX from Dallas (the first time I got someone's number who I met on a plane!). Since getting back to Portland, though, I've felt slow and funky, as though I've had to move my limbs through thick molasses. I think a lot of that has to do with being sick: I was trapped in the Hartford airport for 12 straight hours, from 6am to 6pm, due to weather problems in Dallas--airplanes and airports are Petri dishes for diseases. I also think a lot of it is just plain sadness that Emily and Laura, my closest friends, have left, and there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding when exactly we're going to see each other again--there's no convenient "next semester!" to look forward to. As Laura said when we were saying goodbye in her car, "I think my strategy is basically just denial." Sounds good to me.

So what have I been up to since I came back? I organized the books in my room alphabetically. Corey and I embarked on an epic, furious cleaning frenzy, which involved shaking out the carpets, sweeping and five loads of laundry. We saw the Starlight Parade last night in downtown Portland and went to the amusement park and watched the fireworks the night before last. We also saw "Indiana Jones" in the movie theatre, the first film in the series I've officially watched from beginning to end. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I was also sickened by the price of the ticket--$9, even after I lied about still being a student! We hung around afterwards with the intention to sneak into another, but everything else playing there looked like such crap that we lost the will and energy to lead a life of crime and instead listlessly slunk away.

In terms of work stuff, from June 13th-20th I'm working as a day leader for the Portland Plunge, which is run by an organization called JOIN. The Plunge is an eight-day long immersion into homelessness and urban poverty, started in the 80's by a group of youth ministers in the Archdiocese of Portland. It's basically what I was doing last summer in Tijuana, except in PDX, and the focus is on urban homelessness as opposed to immigration. The Los Embajadores experience is based on the Plunge. Anyway, I have to get on submitting questions and materials for journal entries and for organizing prayers/reflections. I wish I'd been a little more well-organized and prompt about getting that done, but I'm going to take a deep breath, give myself a break for being sick, and just let it go rather than beat myself up about it!

I want to pull out of this funk and finish reading "Man's Search for Meaning" and "Down and Out in Paris and London"! Being 95% recuperated from this cold will help a lot with mental sharpness and emotional enthusiasm, I think, because it means I can start exercising again. I went for a long night bike ride after coming back from Eira's tonight. I went to see the house I used to live in junior year, which made me feel unexpectedly weird and more Bruce Springsteenyist than I expected. I am full of self-analysis and justification for the syrupy state of my brain, I guess.