"Shot to Hell on the Acela"

OK, so I'm not really shot to hell, I'm only mildly exhausted. That's just a Fountains of Wayne lyric that I enjoy. And I didn't really take an Acela to work this morning, it was just the garden variety Northeast Regional Amtrak southbound from NY to DC. Was in Baltimore last night for dinner and a stroll around Inner Harbor/Fell's Point. In case you're unfamiliar, those are the two places in Baltimore least like "The Wire" and thus the only two I've got the stones to go in. It was a pleasant enough evening for eating sushi and sipping some Fat Tire down by the water, and Fell's Point still has an honest to Godorwhatever record store, which is like one of the last ones on the planet that still appears to be making ends meet. It probably helps that they double as a videogame/Blu-Ray/peripherals retailer and possibly an acoustic performance space. So I took the opportunity to inject new blood into my music collection. All in all, a nice little mid-week adventure. BUT the inevitable onset of morning has left me tired and swearing to Godorwhatever that I will never ever ever live somewhere that requires me to make a two hour commute by train. It's just not fun. Even though I get to imagine myself as Don Draper as I stare up and down the aisles:

   "Is that a woman using that handheld TV screen? What is a woman doing on this train?"

...making the trip into town by three separate modes of transit (Light Rail/streetcar from the hotel to the train station; Amtrak between cities; Metro to work) would get real old real quick. And just the getting up early! I, for one, enjoy going to sleep secure in the knowledge that even if I miss my alarm and wake up an hour late, I can still make it to work something resembling on time. I won't have eaten breakfast or put on pants necessarily, but I'll BE THERE. Under my own steam if necessary. And that's the real crux of it. Being far out, you've really got little choice but to entrust your commute to a bunch of impersonal departure boards and vehicle operators you can't even see. Hour and a half bike commute? Sign me up. Same time on the train every day? No thanks. Don't get me wrong, I love trains. Yes, they require an incredible amount of infrastructure built through corridors inhabited by people who can't afford to use them (another issue entirely,) but I enjoy them all the same. I just couldn't bear to have my work day extended by hours of sitting/staring on either end.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking, "man, like all of America commutes in exactly the way you described. Stop complaining that you had to do it once, you have it so super great always." And to that I say "obviously you haven't read the heading about 'unsolicited judgment on life' or the bit where I declare my perspective a Valyrian steel greatsword of inscrutable truth. Yes, I realize I've no cause to complain over any commute that lasts less than an hour in the DC area, but I also pay entirely too much to live in an apartment that's entirely too small in exchange for the privilege of such a commute. Anyhow, that little jaunt should be the last of my interstate travel in the run-up to getting on a plane to Quito. Big ups to Aaron for graduating from Syracuse this month, good luck with the new job little brother. Congrats to Andy at Tulane as well. 

As hectic as things have been, I'm trying to stay abreast of the goings-on down south. Now, many Latin American countries have been harshly critical of the U.S. over the last couple decades (not without reason,) and President Correa's administration is no exception. So I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that the top story of the day was the Iranian state news agency reporting on Ecuador's avowal of support for Iran's nuclear program, and dismissal of the "lies" told by the U.S. and the rest of "the West" about the whole possibility of less-than-peaceful use thing. Like President Obama and same-sex marriage, my position on this issue has "evolved" over time. Suspicion that Iran's refusal to let us give them the technology for nuclear energy meant that they're making weapons has been replaced by the probability that it's more an issue of maintaining face and not wanting to do anything that makes them appear subservient or dependent on other countries in any way. Indeed, embedded in that offer is the tacit accusation that, if left to their own uranium enrichment devices, they'll obviously make weapons with it, which is basically a continuation of their consignment to the "Axis of Evil."  I happen to think we all would have been better off if the AofE speech had never been made, and that we need to get as far away as possible from that sort of thinking. It'd be interesting to know whether Ecuador's tempestuous history with U.S.-based oil companies has any impact on the apprehensiveness with which they seem to view our policy toward other nations' energy programs. And toward other nations in general. Future research topic? All signs point to MAYBE.

OK, 2nd cup of coffee is wearing off and lunchbreak is almost over. Coming soon: medical fun, last-minute preparations, and more!


Saddle song of the week: Of Monsters and Men- "Little Talks"

Life on Coffee Detox

Well, the papers have been turned in, the presentations given, and books returned. Spring semester officially ended for me at midnight on Wednesday, and now it should be (relatively) smooth sailing until June. Having decided that entirely too much of my blood had been made of sugar, caffeine, and Organic Valley half and half over the last few weeks, I forced myself to back off from coffee for a few days now that the semester's wrapped. How original, right? I don't know how long it'll last, likely all the way up until I get tired of it. So far, standing strong at 48 hours.

I ended up buying one of the textbooks I had rented from the bookstore, an excellent account from Deborah Yashar of indigenous organizing and citizenship regimes in Latin America. Deciding against returning a rented book for a refund is something I had never actually done. It's a strangely invigorating feeling to be at a point in my life where that $30 I get for returning a rental doesn't seem like a life-altering amount of money. I had returned a book last semester that I later wished I'd kept, and I'm finally getting used to the idea that as a grad student I'll probably get to reuse research that I've done in the future. It only took me two years to make that connection, amazing!

But what's even more amazing is that finals are over, and it's not even consistently 80 degrees out yet! Outside happy hour last night was actually chilly towards the end. WHERE DO I LIVE THIS IS NOT WASHINGTON. blessedly.unlike.washington. I must have hit the universe lottery or something. Well, maybe I should reserve that statement until final grades come back. Either way, I'm feeling pretty excited about the next few months. You know who's probably feeling markedly less excited? Occupy DC, the shattered remnants of which I glimpsed in bird's eye view this afternoon. The bird in question? An owl who was none too pleased to be disturbed by my pathetic attempts at amateur photography. See if you can guess which side of McPherson square the Occupants had occupied:

I don't know whom I feel worse for: the now-stalled social movement or the square itself. Maybe that grass will grow back by the Fall. In the meantime, maybe all those UN High Commission on Refugees canvassers I keep seeing can do something about the growing crisis of IDWs (internally displaced waterfowl) here in our own backyard. Seriously, what are all the Canada geese going to devour if not the grass in our public parks?

Ecuador internship is starting to come together, and it's looking more and more like it's going to be the Latin American Future Foundation (Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano) in Quito. They support a number of projects throughout  Latin America; most are focused on conflict transformation and environmental issues such as climate change. That's right, I said climate change. You see, compared to the U.S., LA seems to waste relatively little time arguing about whether or not man-made greenhouse gases are having an appreciable effect on the climate and the environment overall. They're far more willing than are we to admit that, yeah, global warming is probably our fault, and even if it's not, we're better off doing something to try and slow it than just branding people anti-business, anti-progress, anti-____ when they suggest "hey guys, maybe we could think about not being quite so reliant on mineral extraction and unsustainable lifestyles?" What a bunch of crazers, seriously. But yeah, internship. I think it'll be a great experience, if a short one. But in all honesty, after 3 weeks of basically non-stop travel, classes, and research, I think 5 weeks of a somewhat normalized schedule is going to seem downright largo. All you music majors should be laughing right about now.

Those who know me well know I'm something of a nervous flier (as opposed to a nervous flyer, which is an apprehensive advertisement.) So it's a good thing I get to travel by air for the next two weekends, so to acclimate my overactive danger response reflex to the experience. Congrats, family and friends in the class of 2012, and a heartfelt thank you for having a major life event that I've got a take a plane to get to. That's so thoughtful of you.

Oh, and Mothers' Day! Happy Mothers' Day Mom, Grammy, and all the utha muthas out there.

Song most sung in the saddle this week: Gotye- "Somebody That I Used to Know." SHOCKER!

UPDATED! Are Good or Bad Dreams More Upsetting?

Happy Monday!

You ever have one of those days where you're really worried about something, and then it goes over exactly how you wanted it to, and you wonder why you worried so much about it? Then you wake up in bed, and it's 3 minutes before your alarm goes off on the morning of that thing you were so worried about? Yeah...

I'm to give a final presentation for a research design project tonight, and let's just say I'm...apprehensive. The project will be an investigation into the changing role of "the victim" in the transitional phase after a civil war or period of internal struggle in which a large number of people were killed, "disappeared," etc. by government or insurgent fighting forces. How has the discourse on the transition process, which IR nerds call "Transitional Justice," changed and evolved over time, from the days when war crimes tribunals a la Nuremberg were the only option, through the Truth Commissions in Latin America and elsewhere, to the emerging focus on grassroots efforts at community healing and forgiveness on the individual AND the group level. The answer is the same as you get when you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros...elephino! El-if-i-no. 'ell if i know? tap tap is this on? But I don't know, because it's not really a project. Just a project design. Look, I could get up there and wax philosophical about a project design with one eye open, OK? But the Q&A afterward, that's what worries me. That someone's going to have a really intriguing, incisive question that I can't even begin to answer, and so I stumble through some lame platitude like "mm, thanks for asking....errr that's a really good question...errr I'll have to look into that more thankssorrynextquestion," and also I'll be in my underwear. Just kidding, that would probably net me the highest grade in the class.

Ecuador things!
1. Orientation last weekend was swell. There's only six of us! Small-group cohesion FTW?
2. Still waiting to hear the final word on my placement with the Latin American Future Foundation.
3. Professor sent out the pre-departure reading list the other day. As in the stuff I have to read between the end of finals next week and the beginning of June.The best way I can think of to describe it is. . . hefty. Luckily I'll have like a million plane trips for the undergraduate commencements of various younger brothers (mine and others') to get it done, as well as a completely random train ride up to Baltimore the last week before I leave, apparently.
4. Need to reach out to a great Quito-based professional resource one of my professors put me in touch with. Why is it that everything happens during finals?

Oh and by the way: Laura, fellow SIS part-timer and Latin Americanista, started a blog with roughly the same aim as my own, only for the Dominican Republic. So GO READ IT. I've read the first couple of posts, and it promises to be considerably better-written, as well as more focused and informative, than what you're reading at this moment.

OK, blogging-as-therapy exercise complete. Thanks for reading!

Song of the day (song I hummed to myself on the ride to work): Bat for Lashes- "Sleep Alone"

(UPDATE:) Presentation went off with barely a hitch, because I believed in myself. So, that's one more thing out of the way before the end of the semester. And this morning I remembered a second part of the dream I had yesterday- after my fictional presentation went fictionally well, I went home and played WarCraft II. Remember WarCraft II? Specifically, I think I was building a shipyard so I could make some oil tankers and "try to get that oil!". I really wanna play it now. There's nothing like a dream to make you romanticize the tedious process of ship-based resource collection in a real-time strategy game from the 90s.

Trivial Synchronicities...

...sounds like the name of a song by Jose Gonzalez. But it's really a pretty good descriptor of what goes on in my head a lot of the time-- essentially, I've noticed that things around me seem to connect in weird little ways depending on what I'm doing or thinking about. This is probably a pretty common psychological and I'm most likely making too much of it. Molehills to mountains, people. That's my thing. But on to the story!

Bought a new laptop for the trip this weekend. My thanks to Carlos at Best Buy for being way more helpful than Best Buy's reputation suggested he would be. But while using that very laptop to research educational equality in Uruguay for a paper, I came across an article about laptops for Uruguyan schoolchildren. How meta! By the way, can someone explain to me exactly what does and does not qualify as meta? Anyway, THAT got me thinking about the laptop pilot program that my hometown undertook well past the time when I could benefit from it. My little brother, of course took immediate advantage of this new academic technology and promptly set his home page to Homestar Runner. Much like I gathered in the Maine school case, laptops in Montevideo have been a mixed blessing since they came about in 2009. They break a lot, (judging by the picture, they just rolled off the assembly line at the Playskool plant, so figure that out) and networks often couldn't handle the extra usage. It'd be interesting to see if anything's changed/improved over the last two or three years. Anyone out there with school-aged kids in Maine know how this program has evolved there? Last I heard, iPads were gonna be the next thing but there were severe budget issues. Or maybe just severe budget fights. I could go ahead and search for news about it, but the chances I'll run across a picture or quote of Gov. LePage are just unacceptably high. My lunch of fair-to-middling Chimerican food needs to stay down this afternoon.

Oh, and yesterday evening I rescued my Tales from the Sharrows buttons from the clutches of their creator/vendor Brian, so.....styliiiiiiiin'! Here's one gracing the wall of some place that is most definitely not my cubicle:

And one hooked to Winona the Kona's saddlebag:

You're welcome, Washington Area Bicyclists' Association.

Thoughts for a sunny Friday

I bet you thought this was going to be one of those blogs that never gets past the initial post, right? Well, joke's on you, Mom. This isn't tee-ball and I'm not 4 year-old quitter Adam anymore. Second posting, what?!

It was one of those mornings when you've got to choose between being a little too warm and a little too chilly. Opted for a little too warm, and equipped my yellow windbreaker for +5 to visibility. Once at work, I got into a conversation with a coworker concerning the weekend forecast: after an "unseasonably cool" week it'll be in the 80s by Sunday. He was considerably more jazzed about this than I. Anything much above the 70s has me feeling a tad uncomfortable unless I'm at the beach/pool. YOU GUYS DO YOU BELIEVE I'M FROM A COLD CLIMATE YET. You're shocked to learn that the temperature is a frequent topic of conversation around a typical office, I know. But it got me thinking about what I have to look forward to in Quito, where the mountainous surroundings lead to average highs in the mid-to-high 60s year round. It'll be the most pleasant, people.

Oh look, Reuters published an article just for me.  Sounds nice. A few weeks ago, I discussed the potential for bicycling in Quito with a classmate who just happens to have grown up there. His response was the very definition of cautious optimism- I could probably do it OK but I'd better watch out seriously or I'd find myself sued for damages when someone rams me from behind and I crack their windshield on account of being launched onto it. So I'll probably have to feel it out as far as trying to actually get places by bike, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't psyched about the Sunday "Ciclopaseo" rides. As far as how to actually get a bike to Ecuador, suggestions include "buy a piece of crap there" or "get a folding bike and bring it." This reminds me of one of those "Life is Full of Important Choices" t-shirts from the 90s. Did you have one? Me neither. Maybe I'll have an alternative transportation-themed one made.

Listen, I don't mean to turn this into a cycling blog. Truly, there are lots of other people who can do that tons better than I can. Still, it's become pretty important to me ever since I've actually lived in a place where you don't really need a car to get around. This is not possible outside a VERY small corridor of southern Maine, the part that sort of blends in with the rest of The Seacoast (TM) and even then it's dicey. My hometown is not located within this " Seacoast Smugness Swath," and so using a bike as primary transport feels like a trait I just found out that I was missing. Thus, a lot of my rantings will likely be shouted from the saddle.

I should probably get a nicer saddle.

The Bane of Productivity

Greetings goobahs, Maineiacs, flatlandahs, folk from away, and most importantly, horse's patoots. Welcome to the blog.

Being that it's April, and those of you who know me also know I'm on the cusp of the Spring semester crunch, you might be asking "Who starts a blog during finals, anyway?" Or maybe that's just me asking. Good question, either way. It could be that I'm making a huge mistake. Maybe the fine (read: completely un-DC-like) springtime weather has me missing home a little. Perhaps I needed a way to clear my head while poring over academic journals and navigating the capricious landscape of a MA program in international affairs. Look, I don't have to explain myself to you, OK? Go do comments on some news site if you want to be snarky. I swear, you... hold it, that's no way to welcome people to my fledgling site; let's start over.

Hey kids, thanks for coming. My name's Adam and I'm a Maine expat living in Washington, DC. After pedaling my way around our nation's capital for more time than is entirely advisable (and certainly more than the average YoPro,) I've decided to write a bit about life in such an absurdly quirky place after growing up in another absurdly quirky place. Oddly enough, this decision came not long after I found out I'd be spending the better part of my summer in Ecuador. Well, it wasn't totally unexpected- let's say I had a hunch.  Anyway, in the run-up to the trip, I'll be sharing my entirely inadequate efforts to prepare. Topics will include (maybe) intriguing social issues; (probably) figuring out just how much Spanish I actually still know; (definitely) whether it's at all feasible to explore Quito by bike as I've done with Washington;  and anything else that happens to fall under my Valyrian steel greatsword of inscrutable truth. ¡A Bordo!