Hey

I feel that there's some profound sadness in this song.

listening to your parents

I seriously think the reason I didn't listen to my parents a lot was because they gave oversimplified justifications for a lot of their decisions and expected me to do what I was told based on the fact that they were my parents.

I like how the command "Listen to your parents." literally means *hear what your parents have to say*, but is universally taken as "Do what your parents say." Maybe it's because we used to think that if you actually listen to what your parents have to say you'll end up doing what they say. I don't know if we think this anymore. It certainly isn't true.

Even if my parents made good decisions, they gave me bogus justifications. And my parents are very good parents.

I think as a parent you know what works and what doesn't, what's good and what's not (or some approximation of it), but you don't necessarily remember why it works or why it's good -- things just become habit. So when it comes to bringing up children, it's convenient for parents to supply simple, easy to remember reasons for their kids to understand and accept or to avoid justification at all with the perennial "You'll understand when you're older./You'll thank me when you're older./Trust me./It's for your own good."

Some of my favorite justifications for things:

Don't Lie. You'll get in twice as much trouble if you do something wrong and lie about it.

Don't steal. We will find out.

Wear nice clothes. They look better./People will like you more.

Keep your mouth closed and lips together when you chew. "Smacking" is rude.

None of these reasons were ever compelling to me on a moral level.
Sorry Mom, Sorry Dad. Much love!

emotional overflow and misdirection

I have this feeling that I've got something really wonderful to say to somebody, but I don't know who and I don't know what.

Back

Well, I'm back home (but you probably already knew that). I actually got back June 29th (started off from Canberra airport on what was June 28 there, then Sydney/jet engine problems/3 hour flight delay/arrival in LA/9 hour layover at LAX/caught the 11PM flight to Marlyand/arrived 7AM on Monday June 29), but I was only home for a few days before heading off to Maine with my mom, dad, and Kate. Now I'm home again.

Australia. I feel, and I'm sure some expect, that I should have some culminating words to say about my experience abroad. At some point or other, I think I will, but I'm not ready to say those words yet.

Australia. What immediately come to mind are memories. I look back at my experiences in Australia with overwhelming positivity. I enjoyed living/studying/playing in Australia, sometimes immensely.

I won't forget

AustraLearn's killer orientation program in Cairns,
scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef,
ANZAC Day:
(especially the Dawn Service,
freezing cold weather,
and inadequate clothes),
IB!!,
training for IB,
my Div 4 teammates and finishing,
inter-hall field hockey,
watching Bruce basketball,
ANU campus and classes (my introduction to continental philosophy),
Jean-Luc Nancy and The Experience of Freedom,
getting my first HD on an assignment!,
Mooseheads (and the crazy nights that started, or ended, there),
my time spent in Melbourne
(which includes Cirque du Soleil,
Crown Casino,
a real barbecue,
AFL,
but more importantly the top-notch people I spent my time with),
playing soccer with fellow Brucies,
the unofficial weekly soccer sign-up sheet :),
Big Night Out! (Band Night hosted by Bruce!),
learning all sorts of things from my fellow Brucies, like:
the philosophy and practice of NLP;
tips on running, soccer, field hockey, cricket, etc.;
heaps of stuff about nutrition;
the value of a Rolex;
Slagsmålsklubben = popular Swedish "8-bit" pop;
a good (or cheap) bottle of Port can go a long way;
the Dragon Ball series are (secretly) universally enjoyed;
how to say "Come to Fenner!" in a really funny high-pitched voice;
and loads more!
the craziness of ANU semester 1 exam period,
things we said often:
"chin, ciao",
"we are not the (blank) Malaysians",
"are you serious?",
"goodonya!",
"shitonya!",
"tha-ha-ha-hat's right!" (superb!),
"are you a firshyear? or a lashyear?",
"no means no!",
"Americaaaa!",
"H-o-pe!",
"Cha---nge!",
being "Charlie Brown"
as well as Mr. (Bedroom) Philosopher
as well as Mr. just-in-case Paczynski,
whole-foods Bolay,
these-days Hasan,
much of my second-to-last night at Bruce,
and the next day (my last) at Bruce,
Tim Horton's and laughing fits,
that there were some really eye-opening political-
and philosophical discussions,
a great time in Sydney,
my travel buddy from Chicago,
and most especially I will not forget a truly awesome and creative bunch of people with whom I had an uber-great time. Many of you made big impressions on me. Most of all I am glad that I met each and every one of you. For those of you I was able to get to know well, I feel lucky. The best to all of you.

So this is my official "I'm back from Australia and here's a little bit of what Australia was like for me."

I kept thinking, while I was at ANU, that my time in Australia would probably seem like a dream to me when I got back to the States. This is because back home there is no one who shares any common experience with me of Australia, and all I have is memory (oh, and Facebook) to prove what happened to myself. Kind of a weird thought, yeah, but not that weird. Well, now that I'm back I do feel somewhat alienated from "my life" (which isn't so unusual for me). But in this case I am split between feeling, on the one hand, like Australia was an episode of my life that never happened, that I'm picking my real life back up after escaping for a brief while into some weird movie, and, on the other hand, like I am somehow altered, and that the present follows naturally from my time in Australia.

Facebook definitely helps in providing the illusion of continuity. I can look at my pictures and keep in contact with friends, but, in an important way, I am also cut-off from things that happened and friends I had (have) in Australia. I am amazed at how much impact physical closeness can have on psychological closeness. I feel very far away from Australia now, in both senses. Maybe I need to think of the world more as my neighborhood.

In any case, I believe that I am not yet done interpreting my Australian experiences. I can already see how I have changed in 5 months, and, in time, I think I will discover that studying in Australia has impacted me in no small way.

I remember stumbling across an intriguing website on "dialectics" while writing my final paper for Adv Continental Philosophy. (http://home.igc.org/~venceremos/whatheck.htm)

So, if dialectics is "a tool to understand the way things are and the way things change," and, if I truly have changed, then I'm not really "back," I'm somewhere new. To say something is back is to say that it has returned, i.e. "come full circle." But change moves in spirals, not circles. Even for cyclical processes (day/night, breathing in/breathing out, one opposite/then another), "dialectics argues that these cycles do not come back exactly to where they started; they don't make a perfect circle. Instead, change is evolutionary, moving in a spiral." I've spiraled, not circled.

So I'm here but I'm not back. Got it?

paths

A: Trust me; this is the path to salvation.

B: It's not my path - not if you're leading the way.