The Turner Experience

On Wednesday morning, Arcadiy and I started out in Atlanta, Georgia, after eating lunch with Ben James and Willy B. We crossed the entire country in his white stallion. Last night we arrived in San Jose, CA, at the house of former LCP of AIESEC SJSU, Colin. He has continued on to Seattle; I am staying for two amazing weeks in the Bay Area.

Here is our entire trip that we just took:


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Each night, except for in Salt Lake City, we managed to stay with AIESEC friends and have a great time. Also we hiked up to Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday (we would have continued up the trail to Emerald Lake but it was too snow-packed) and stopped off at the Sierra Trading Post in Cheyenne, WY.

This trip has been an intense experience for me. I have been to San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Oxford before, but (with the exception of Oxford) it was always via airplane. Driving across the country, inch by inch and foot by foot and mile by mile, watching every blade of grass bleed into every forest and give way to the flat green plains of Kansas to grow into the rising highlands of eastern Colorado, abruptly interrupted by the titanic Rockies and moving on up north to pass over the moonscape that is Wyoming, through the unfamiliar Western terrain of Utah’s salt flats and Nevada’s heavy mountainous deserts finally giving way to Tahoe’s majestically beautiful summits rolling down to the Pacific coast has been a surreal and powerful accomplishment. I have come to understand and appreciate just how very vast and diverse this country is, and everywhere we passed by I thought of different histories, of 40 acres and a mule, of outlaws on the frontier, of buffalo massacres and Native American tribes, of Mormons crossing such an incredible distance to found Deseret and of the true end of the frontier coming from the western end as well. It has blown my mind and it has also been the very appropriate beginning to what I expect will be a wonderful few weeks enjoying freedom before I ship out to Asia (wherever in that even more vast land I choose to go).

Tomorrow Kelsey arrives and then we will go camping in Big Sur, we will stay with my cousin in Berkeley to hit up San Francisco, and we will go camping in Napa before Get Golden. I am ecstatic to be able to spend two great weeks in paradise.

More to come soon hopefully. I’m taking some pretty good pictures.

The Mountaintop

I have finished Georgia Tech. I have taken all my finals. Most of the stuff is out of the Duplex ready to go back to Gadrock. Tomorrow morning I head to the Georgia Dome to go through commencement.

And it is looking like I will have quite a plate of options on the table. I have interviewed with / am in the process of moving forward with three different opportunities. One is being on the expansion team expanding AIESEC into Mongolia, and continuing the good work begun by my former comrade Alina and her band of merry Yalies. One is a traineeship for Prime Networks, Ltd., a content delivery network startup in Beijing, PRC. And one is for Mindvalley in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

They all represent radically different possible paths for this new stage in my life. The winds of fortune will have to be read carefully for me to take the wisest path. I intend to be out of the country by August, but if I choose Mongolia I will have to be there by July 1. As the possibilities weigh themselves on my mind at the crossroads, I remember the words of the checkout clerk:

If you want to find the truth, you have to walk through the darkness. In the depths of the darkness where no one likes to tread is where the truth lies.

Those are the words that swim in my head at night when I lay me down to sleep, that buzz through my brain while the steam of the shower awakens me while the morning light streams through the bathroom window. I think they are the calling of my destiny.

But until then, I go with a great companion on a long trip where he will begin his life anew in Seattle, and will drop me off in San Jose, CA; on the way we will commiserate and rest with old friends in Ohio, Kansas, and Colorado; we will hike a bit and chat aplenty. Then I get the pleasure of spending two wonderful weeks with Colin before he begins his MC term working with Tiffany and the others on the AIESEC US Dream Team, the first properly elected and selected such team in twelve years. I’ll also be with my new ladyfriend, exploring San Jo, San Francisco (I’m particularly interested in checking out a Long Now Foundation Seminar!), camping in Napa Valley and culminating in AIESEC San Jose’s Get Golden camping trip in Yosemite over Memorial Day weekend. Then I fly to New York to visit those people beginning their terms on the MC, and then back to Alabama on the first of June for some much needed R & R after five years of mental siege.

So much to try to experience and prepare for before the next chapter begins in this saga. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Drum Circle

Yesterday I took the time to take my djembe out to Piedmont Park at 4 PM, when Shaun said the drum circle folks met every Sunday.

We sat down on a sunny, breezy afternoon in the small stone-paved plaza / overlook next to The Lawn. The core of the circle had already formed – a couple of experienced and well-practiced black conga players, and around them some people with djembes of various sizes. Mine was the largest and deepest. I can’t escape the large instruments.

Shaun played first, and then I played two afterwards. The rhythms were varied, richly textured, and lasted a good long time. I definitely delighted in getting lost in them after I caught my groove. As the player of the lowest-pitched drum I was pretty important so I had to pay attention to providing a reliable beat, rather than indulging in adding garnishes or flair.

As we played to our hearts’ content, people came to sit and watch, to listen. Children played and danced in front of us, and so did some adults – dancing skilfully to the syncopated beats, shaking every axis of freedom with the Sun and the people watching on. There were people unconventionally dressed – throwbacks to the ’60s, some just not locked into the prevailing fashion, one woman looked like an African godmother. As I watched I became entranced by the very beat I was a part of creating. I closed my eyes and let it flow.

As I subjected myself to the charging tide of the beat of which I was a weaver, one of the paddlers on the grand boat down the river of music and art and life that was happening in the southeast corner of Piedmont Park, I thought about a world or a place where this gathering would be frowned upon, or illegal, or attacked. People dressed differently would be shunned, spat upon, pissed upon, attacked with rocks or sticks or bags full of old food. The musicians would be surrounded by the police, their instruments confiscated or smashed on the ground in front of the illegally gathered crowd who would have to flee for their safety, weeping with confusion and anger and desperation if they were caught. And when those expressing themselves were safely detained, the mouthpiece of the regime would declare to the park: “This has been an illegal gathering in violation of the Code of Peace. You are reminded not to attend unauthorized and unsanctioned cultural gatherings at the risk of punishment under the prevailing Ordinances. Return to your homes.”

With that in my mind, I reveled in the small but remarkable moment of expression we were a part of. And I was thankful for the place I lay my head.

Finish Line Ahead

I will blog more about Spain later, when I have my photos all nice and loaded up.

The other night I was at Trader Joe’s, just getting some milk. I noticed there were several long-ish lines (for Trader Joe’s anyway) at the checkout counters, but the one at the left end of the occupied counters had one person who was about to be done, so I went to it. As soon as I settled there, a man’s voice to the left asked, “Are you a philosopher?”

I looked and where I thought there was an unmanned counter there was a worker, with no line in front of him. I walked and I said, “Not yet anyway.” He replied while looking me in the eye and taking my groceries, “I hope not. Because if you can’t find the free check-out counter in the grocery store, you’ll never find the truth.”

He continued as he rang me up, “And you know, most people think that the truth, it’s like rays of light that shine down from above.” He paused as he looked at me deeper, not really leaning in but pulling me somewhat closer with his eyes. “But you will not find the truth as revelation. If you want to find the truth, you have to walk through the darkness. In the depths of the darkness where no one likes to tread is where the truth lies.” He bagged my last item and I walked out the door.

I think that statement is profoundly true. When I was still a Christian, one of the aspects of Jesus that I most sought to replicate and admire (and admittedly I still do) was the part where he “ate with sinners.” This had a true effect on my understanding and interpretation of the faith and the way of life, but many of the authority figures around me often dismissed this aspect somewhat when I would try to explain it, or at the least they rarely encouraged it.

At this point it should be noted that this entry has been written over three separate periods, each time with me meaning to finish it, but always getting interrupted before my thoughts finished. Here’s some more:

I’ve been working on getting the sort of ideal traineeship in China: a year in a fundamentally non-Western country, a place where I can learn a major world language, working in renewable energy and utilizing somewhat, but not overwhelmingly, engineering. I have been in talks with a company but it’s slowing down, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out. So I am expanding my traineeship search. I’m probably going to apply to MindValley, which would be so off the chain, and a couple of other places. We’ll see – main thing is to get out into a worthwhile thing for my own interests and development, and to wait out this economic thing. I like to read fivethirtyeight a lot because Nate Silver does a good job of making statistically interesting projections and analyses of the economic situation, which is hard to understand, at least as much as I would like to understand it – which is profoundly deeply.

Very soon I’ll be done with GT and then I think people will see someone return who hasn’t been here in a while – a calmer, more amicable me. My own mother tells me how much less happy I seem now than I did before college, and with an awesome trip to be taken in May with people I really want to be with and the prospect of a year of new developments, I think my mind will sufficiently rest and recharge itself, along with my soul.

Gone Ramblin’

It only just hit me that, oh, I leave for the airport to go to Spain with my sister in a few minutes.

The first time I went to Spain it was like this huge movement and upheaval, but the next time I left the US for another country – to Istanbul, Turkey – it was more like sitting down in a room for 15 hours and then walking out in a new place. It wasn’t a huge upheaval, it was just there. I think that’s when I truly realized that travel had changed me at the core.

I like that a lot. I hope my sister will come to understand the same thing.

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Another Set

I don’t have much time before I need to lay me down, but I need to continue the exercise.

I have an unholy mountain to climb in the next 72 hours. On Wednesday I have two tests and a presentation, on Thursday I have a test, and it ends about six hours before I need to be at the airport to volar a España.

It’s so much that I almost can’t even “see” Spain over the mountaintop. I have to give myself solace in the fact that I only have five Mondays left at Georgia Tech (not counting finals week). That’s nice.

Another huge difficulty is in our senior design project, the maglev train. Very, very ambitious. Too ambitious probably. We’ll see. We’ll pass anyway, but barely. F+. Click.

I probably won’t get truly struck with excitement for Spain until I’m there. That’s just the way it tends to be with me and travel, it’s just going down the road. It’s all a long road that goes on forever, not some huge exciting sea change.

But I am of course looking for that sea change, if and when it comes. I’m ready for something completely new. New parts of my brain need to be stretched, and the parts that have been blown out and salted over for the last five years need time to heal. Whatever it takes. But the learning curve can’t stop.

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Catching Up

It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted, which isn’t great. I’ve tried to keep up better as a legitimate right-brain exercise, since that’s definitely a mental muscle I don’t want to lose.

There are now less than two months until I graduate from Tech with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering, with a co-op and international plan certificate, and a Spanish minor. I am counting down every day; it’s like being on a very long run and seeing the finish line get closer. I am pretty much just on momentum right now with inertia, but I try to run every now and then – in real life and in this metaphor.

Speaking of running, I’ve run more regularly recently, at least three or four times a week for the past few weeks, but I’ve been sick with a mild ear infection since the weekend. The medicine leaves me really dehydrated and I overheat easily so I can’t keep it up for now; disappointing since I want to badly to get back into a routine for getting back into shape. I’ve been (generally) eating better as well, or at least eating more consciously.

Last weekend was RoKS, which was my last in fact – my first was way back three years ago the same weekend in Jacksonville, FL in the spring of 2006. We went down there all the way because we had to accommodate the three kids from Miami to come there; naturally they quickly died out as they had before. Wasted money and time by the higher-ups. Anyway, I was a faci at our RoKS and it was a good experience, although I think a lot of the flow of the conference could have been better. I still made my session enormously late but I think I facilitated one good session I made with Dani from UNC about the AIESEC Way and the AIESEC Experience, and my big thing was to make it so the delegates got into small groups and had 30 seconds each to describe their most pivotal AIESEC Experience to the group. The person per group who gave the best story within the 30 second limit came to the front and said it to the whole session. It was designed to both prep them for the idea of selling the AIESEC Experience through their stories (and to keep the stories short and understandable) and to hopefully get the newbies hooked on the sweet stories of older members. I think it was a good move because the people who came to the front of the room had really interesting stories. Also we did a Twitter feed for the conference, you can see the results here.

I am listening to some really fresh rap on WREK right now on Wrekroom Renaissance. It’s making for the perfect background.

Most of what’s driving me on this blog is my interest in content creation. Think about how many people have really interesting and constructive ideas but don’t ever put them down for anyone to know about? A great novel, a hit song, solutions to problems, a new recipe, an allsome film? We’re uniquely lucky with the Internet to be very easily able to put information out for the whole world to see. Of course, this has to come with the right expectations of responsibility and a good bit of education on it, but I sure hope they never censor the Internet. Freedom is great.

Recently I’ve had several conversations in which I spent a while trying to explain my views on things like politics, religion, morality, the economy, etc. and it goes on a really long time and people get lost. Then at the end they say “you have to be thinking really long term, aren’t you?” And I say “Of course I am!” I know most everyone’s capable of thinking really long-term, but maybe a lot more people are indeed focused on the really short or medium term and not about their long-term future, or that of their children. I’ll have to figure out how to better frame the logical progression from our current state to my desired vision so people see how it is causal and relates to the here and now.

Oh man, now it’s that sweet funk on WREK, Electric Boogaloo. I LOVE Thursday nights. So very solid.

Only a week until I leave for Spain with my sister. We’re going to Sevilla, Valencia for the Fallas where I’ll stay with my old roommates, and Madrid. Truly she will learn the way of the nomad.

Okay, about time to hit it.

Pulling the Pavement from Under My Nails

I totally randomly came across this girl on YouTube today. Her name is Ann Marie Calhoun and she is ON FIRE in more ways than one (if you’ll use your eyes and ears).

This is her and her brother playing “Stash” by Phish:

And here she is with Widespread Panic, blowing the doors off of “Driving Song” > “Surprise Valley” in a way I’ve not heard since Mikey died in 2002:

Impressive!

Applications (BLAM)

All the different little emotions I experience get caught up in the most interesting, vile, or annoying tapestries at times.

There is a feeling of stress which I’m definitely feeling right now that I must wonder if I will feel when I’m done with Tech. It’s hard to put into words, but giving it ye olde college try I’d say it’s “the stress of the imminent and omnipresent pressing me with the knowledge that I have too much to focus on / too much to do / can’t get it done / won’t get it done / won’t get it done like I want it / can’t do what I like / won’t do what I like because instead I will do (THING),” on top of all of the other attempts to fill in the Pyramid.

By my estimate, I will forget this feeling for a long time after I graduate because I intend to only work in those things in which I have a sincere interest. I’ve felt that for just about none of my classes at GT, and they have been the aforementioned “imminent and omnipresent (THING).”

But it’s pulling me back!

The Week and the Day: The System Failed

The first week back of school has ramped up slowly but surely. Although my classes this semester won’t be as debilitatingly difficult as Spring ’08 or as rigamarole-esque (forgive me for that one) as Summer & Fall ’08, it will be a pretty hefty offering with a good bit of homework. However, not being LCP is going to factor favorably into the success equation.

This past weekend was AIESEC GT’s Leadership Team Retreat, and it was a really good one! There were no major incidences although some good solid constructive conversation was had, and best of all we finally finished the LC constitution we’ve been knocking around for three years! We even got a good bit of headway done on taking all the disparate “common-law” style LTR notes from the past three years and organizing them into a single living bylaws document. Both nights were packed with fun, fire, the stars on the lake, and Saturday night was host to an intense conversation on religion, human nature, the Gaza conflict, and other related items of import. It was a conversation of the type I haven’t had for a long time, and the last time I had one was definitely while not in the USA – probably that Nordic circle from ITC in Romania in April ’07. It was refreshing and empowering – a reminder of why AIESEC is so cool.

Monday was difficult, as all Mondays will be. I have a gigantic wall of classes followed immediately by our LCM. I’m trying to get back into running in the morning and, since I don’t have any labs (except when senior design picks up) that keep me at school way late I think I’ll be able to actually keep it up.

Today was really especially cool though. My old German mate from the language school in Gandia, Nikolai, was in Atlanta on layover for about eight hours and so we got to have a pretty cool day today. I freaked out yesterday because I saw the headlines about the new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) which went into effect yesterday: if a national of one of the countries in the Visa Waiver Program (Germany included) vists the USA, the I-94 form has been replaced by having to enter your data online at least three days before your date of entry. By the time I read the article Nikolai had less than 24 hours before his bald head would be stepping out of the plane at Hartsfield-Jackson International. I texted him and tried to call him and sent him a facebook message about the issue, imploring him to at lesat try by entering his data. He managed to do so, and somewhat unsurprisingly, this morning at customs the customs man told him that almost every traveler was blindsided by the requirements and so since no one had their data they were just letting people through like normal. I was relieved to hear his voice on the phone when he said he was on MARTA on his way up to Midtown station just before 0800. We enjoyed a good Southern breakfast at West Egg, and then he wanted to see the World of Coke, so we parked at GT and we walked through Centennial Olympic Park and went there. It was sort of interesting, but not nearly on the level of the Georgia Aquarium, and unsurprisingly we drank too many soft drinks. He also had a hankering for a really good burger so we went back to my place and walked to the old standby, the Highlander, where he also had a Sweetwater 420 and said the burger was “the best he had had in ten years” – it having been a decade since his last presence in the US. We walked through Piedmont for a bit and then I took him back to the station. It was great to see him again.

Now I’m off to bed before another hard Wednesday.