somebody's got my back

I just found a charge from this website on my credit card bill.

http://www.blackpeoplemeet.com/

Too bad I don't know how to access my profile!

I have a jewish bias

I went to a luncheon today for Jewish social work students, and now I want to be a Mormon-Jew.

There were 8 of us who ate bagels and locks around the conference table while young, smart Rabbi Jacob led us in a discussion on coping in difficult and uncertain times according to the Jewish tradition. We read a Yiddish text written by a woman a few hundred years ago who pled, "How long, O God of Israel, will You hold out the rod of punishment toward those who are but dust and clay?"

We discussed the Jewish tradition of "holy audacity" in which people can call God out to make sure that He's keeping His promises. I really liked their bold approach to covenants.

I think that the Rabbi and I might have been the only ones in the group who believe in God, but I felt so comfortable and welcomed there. There was a strong feeling of unity around the culture, the history and the texts.

It made me want to work harder to create a Mormon community in which believers and non-believers, hard-liners and questioners, practicing members and inactives, doubters and non-traditionalists can all feel equally welcomed and embraced. (Maybe we need a food that is a little more bonding than green jello.)

They invited me to join their JHarvest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which means that after paying a flat fee, I will get a box of fresh organic fruits and vegetables every Thursday in June through October. Hooray! In addition to being part of the "new Jewish food movement," I'll get creative veggie recipes and chances to go work on the farm. This will be the summer of healthy deliciousness.

Let it be known that if I didn't want to marry a Mormon, I'd marry a Jew in a heartbeat.

I'm getting published in the Ensign!

A few months ago, I submitted something to the Ensign and they accepted it! They're even paying me a little. AAAAHHH!!! The article started a few years ago as a journal entry and then morphed into a Relief Society lesson and finally into a talk. I don't know when it will be published yet and they said, "Not all materials can be scheduled for immediate publication; some will be schedule in future months or years according to editorial needs." So stay tuned, but in the mean time, here it is in its pre-Ensign-edited form. Special thanks to MAV, Nathan O, Jeffrey N, and Bro Knowles for their editing assistance!

Belated Tributes to the DR

1. JEN KENG for being an unending source of wit, for packing aloe, dollars and a driver's license, for being a natural alarm clock, for jumping off waterfalls while hating it, for finding and eliminating rotting shells in her backpack (no, it wasn't chicken-noodle soup!), for being a perfect navigator and driver, for teaching me how to eat a whole fish, for getting married and giving us an excuse for this trip.

2. GARRETT HILL for surprising us on the beach with his presence, for being the most easy-going, flexible and optimistic travel-companion ever, for the gift of Trader Joe's honey-cocoa soap and dark chocolate.


3. MITSUBISHI for making a sedan that can be tricked into acting like an ATV.

CHAVE or LLAVE? NOITE or NOCHE?
ELA or ELLA? MAIS or MAS?

4. PORTUGUESE for giving me the false perception of being able to speak Spanish.


5. LONELY PLANET MAPS for being so amazingly detailed that they were our only navigational tool.



6. JACK BLACK for providing our trip theme song: "You're not hardcore. Unless you live hardcore."



7. CHACO'S for being my faithful travel companions in 8 different countries.

8. JOSE, my 19-year-old tandem paragliding guide, for not killing me and for proposing to me mid-air.


9. SANTO DOMINGO TEMPLE for having an ocean view and patron lodging for $3/night.


10. NUTELLA for being a "great source" of protein for long road trips.

4 Ways to Access a Dominican Beach

1. Step out of your hotel room.
That´s what we did our first morning in the DR in a little town called Boca Chica. We were so excited about our situation that we didn´t do a good enough job applying the $10 bottle of sunscreen that we had just bought, and we both slightly fried. After 4 days, the little blisters at the top of my arms and the top of my legs are finally starting to peel. The pain was totally worth it because our little section of private beach was in a cove of warm, blue, 4 foot deep water that extended for about half a mile.


2. Walk 2.5 miles from your isolated farm house-hostel through town and down an unpaved rural road.
That´s how we got to little magical LaPlayita (located on the peninsula of Samana) where there were no other people except for a couple cuddling on the sand and a Dominican woman who made us lunch. On a covered table on the sand, we ate fresh fish, rice, beans, fried plantains and fried bananas that the woman prepared back in her little makeshift hut that doubled as a kitchen. It was delicious.

3. Take a little jet boat over churning, stormy waves into the middle of the ocean with a driver screaming ¨Quiero morir!¨ (I want to die!) every time he got air off a wave.
That was how we got back into the pristine cove of Playa Rincon with its 3 kilometers of white sand. The beach is apparently one of the most beautiful in the Caribbean, and its sand and backdrop of palm trees were stunning. On the boat ride on the way back, the sea was even rougher, and I devised a plan in my head about what I could leave behind in order to swim to shore in my underwear. (I was the saddest about the prospect of losing my TIME magazine.) Fortunately, neither my magazine nor my clothes had to be sacrificed to the great deep, but I did get a cramp in my arm from gripping the side of the boat. The video fails to depict the real treacherousness of the situation.

4. Drive down a steep, unpaved, muddy, boulder ridden road with a flat tire.
That was the road we had to take from our mountainous luxury camping place down to the popular beach town of Cabarete. Our tire wasn´t completely flat, but when some kids in a fruit stand yelled out ¨problema! problema!¨while pointing at our car, we became even more nervous. We made it slowly down to the mountain to a gas station, and after we filled the tire up with air, it was fine and it has been fine ever since. No holes. No obvious leaks. A miracle. The beach of Cabarete was lively with tourists and of course, stunning. (The video I posted above is of the bathroom at the luxury camping place where we were minutes before we got the flat tire. The video's connection to this paragraph is weak, but I just liked the bathroom a whole lot.)

Driving Dominican Style

Greetings from the Dominican Republic where I am spending my spring break with my dear friend Jen Keng and risking our lives behind the wheel of a white Mitsubishi Lancer. For the first time in my international travels, we have rented a car. (In keeping with my travel habits, I didn't bring my driver's license, just my passport, so the car is in Jen's name, but I've asked to do most of the driving. Fortunately, highway patrol here seems pretty lax.)

The first sign that the driving would be difficult was the fact that the windshield has a foot of dark tinting along the bottom and two feet of dark tinting along the top, giving us approximately two feet of clear visibility. This visibility is reduced to about a square foot when it's raining and we use the decade-old streaky wipers at full speed, which has been every day. I can see through it really well when I lean up against the steering wheel, granny style.

Once we find the peep hole out of the windshield, we focus on swerving around the man-size potholes that could possibly consume our vehicle. In some undocumented part of history, the DR must have been the victim of its own Blitz. At a particularly ugly set of potholes, some entrepreneurial teens were taking advantage of the situation by demanding a toll from the slowing cars.

Other road obstacles include:
- The luxury buses that pass us on two-lane roads, completely covering us in their wet slosh. (Normally I would be embarrassed to admit that I was getting passed by million-pound buses, but these dudes are crazy.)
- Gorgeous ocean views.
- 70% inclines. With potholes. Good thing our automatic can shift down to first gear. RRRRR.
- Puddles that reach halfway up the car doors.
- Yelling "hola" to all the children and families hanging out on the main streets as we pass by. (see picture above)

Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I feel perfectly safe!

Another reason I love being a student at UW

Free roller skating every Friday night at the university gym!

Tearing up the gym floor with my friend Kurt.

Laney, Marissa and I practiced purposeful falls before we hit the main drag.
Laney has a nice video of one of her falls here.

Juvy

One of my kids got shot last weekend.

I'm interning as a probation counselor at juvenile court two days a week for the practicum requirement of my program. I currently supervise 9 kids who are on probation which means that I: check in with them to see how they're doing, talk to their parents about their behavior at home, get school attendance and academic records, check their restitution payments, offer them suggestions for community service opportunities, etc. Most of my kids have done more trivial crimes like keying 20 cars (restitution payment of $20,000 after negotiations) and walking a burglarized flat screen TV through the woods.

I love it because I get to spend most of the day talking on the phone to people, because I get to observe some riveting court proceedings (law school? law school?!), and because it's all about narrative. It's slightly thrilling to open a new file - they are literally green cardstock filefolders - and start reading all the police reports, court reports and personal interviews to try to piece together that kid's story. Some of them I get to meet in person, like the 13-year-old I visited last week at a children's home. He was cute, goofy, and a little immature for his age. He has molested his little brother.

One of the kids I have connected with the most is Chuck*, a big and friendly 16-year-old. He's the only one of my kids who has my cell phone number, and last week we had this nice text-messaging conversation that he initiated: (All spellings are authentic.)

CHUCK: Dis is Chuck. Just checkin in.

ME: How are things going?

CHUCK: Good. Im straight.

ME: Good work. Stay straight. I still need your community service hours please.

CHUCK: Yea. I got you.

When I called him yesterday, he groggily tole me that he had just been treated at the hospital for a bullet wound. On Saturday night, he and his buddy went out to Jack-in-the-Box when a group of boys jumped his friend. Chuck jumped into the middle of the fight and then got shot in the pelvis. His friend got shot twice in the leg. The doctors can't take out his bullet because it's too close to a nerve.

When I called to get the police report, the investigating officer said that it was a gang-related incident. I was sad about the shooting, but devastated by that particular piece of news. His mom has now put him on lock-down. He'll be done with his probation in 2 months. I hope he still calls me.

*Name changed
**Sorry about the heteronormative language!

Obama Day Flashback

Even though I wasn't in D.C. on Inauguration Day, I still got to go to a ball to celebrate the historic day. A pub in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood called The Ballroom hosted in a very generous fashion: free appetizers, free drinks, free chocolate, no cover charge. It felt like the pub owners just honestly wanted us to share in their excitement, rejoicing and relief.

Between the radio and a TV at juvenile court, I was able to catch most of the ceremonies that morning, and I was teary throughout. My highlight was the quartet that played John Williams' arrangement of "Simple Gifts." I taught that melody to my fifth graders a couple years ago; I even sang it to them. It would make me so happy if they remembered it.
David picked up me and Laney. My ever-so-talented roommate Cassie did my hair and make-up, and then took pictures. It kind of felt we were going to the prom, but Obama wasn't president when I went to the prom. Booyah!

We danced with a bunch of our other friends. (Twainites: yes, that is Jason P!)
Laney and I danced in a cage. I liked it way more than she did.
We ate delicious free local chocolate. One of the chocolates had curry in it - it was weird. When you come visit, I'll take you on a tour of the Seattle chocolate factory.

Back at my house, we broke out the Obama chocolates that my friend A. Middy gave me for Christmas. The sticker on my chest was a gift of The Ballroom and is now in my journal.

Obama at our fingertips.

(Just a note on my dress. Some of you may recognize it because I have now successfully worn it at four different formal events in four different states: Stanford's senior formal, NYC Christmas gala, Boston YSA dance at the state house, and now Seattle. Although I think admitting that is some sort of fashion faux pas, I'm kind of proud that I have gotten such good use out of it. What a great investment. I wonder what state I can wear it in next...)

NYC Has Ruined Me!

I just got a ticket for jaywalking.

There are a bunch of pointless lights on UW's campus, and I run through them every day going between the institute and the social work building. A campus cop on a mountain bike saw me run through one today and pulled me over (can you say that when you're not driving?) next to a light post. At first I wanted to laugh. In fact, I had to consciously refrain myself from giggling. Then he told me that the infraction cost $56, and I almost started to cry.

The biggest irony of this situation is that literally an hour earlier, I jaywalked with a friend across that very same intersection and complained to him about how uptight Seattleites are: "It boggles my mind how people in Seattle obediently stand and wait at a crosswalk when there are obviously no cars for miles." Yes, those were my exact words an hour before I got a 56-dollar ticket.

I tried to tell the cop that for the past three years I had been living in New York City where jaywalking is a beautiful and accepted way of life. He didn't seem to care.

It took me what felt like 10 minutes to walk the final 2 blocks to my destination. I looked on with envy at the few rebellious souls who darted through the empty intersections.

Next time I'm going to cross a street illegally (for example, as soon as I leave this building), I will look out not only oncoming cars, but also for uptight bike cops.