I'm now located in Maassachusetts, where I will probably be through early February. And, in early to mid March (the date is not finalized yet, though it will be around March 9th), I will be leaving for a super epic and exciting Peace Corps assignment in... SENEGAL! This is a bit of a dream come true, actually. I will be in a French speaking country and will be taking intensive French classes upon arrival (i.e. I will finally be able to speak to the French side of Nic's family once I come home), and will be a health educator, which is a fantastic job. Throughout various times in my life I've contemplated a wide variety of jobs, ranging from teacher to pharmacist, and the only real interest that has survived over my years of conscious existence has been in medicine/nutrition. This PC assignment really gives me the chance to put my baseline interest to the test- can I make a living from what has been a hobby and interest for years? I surely hope the answer is yes. But, I've got two years to discover and explore this career choice, and I'm looking forward to every day of it. Plus, Nic will be studying a native language, and I eventually will to, but French first, and that's cool. I will eventually be married to a tri or quad lingual dude. That's exciting. I love the ability of humans to continue learning and growing over the course of their lives.
Speaking of learning and growing, I'm back to being an education volunteer here at Overlook Farm, which basically means that I teach groups of children and adults (but usually middle school aged children) about hunger, poverty, community building, and farm-livin' (the element that tends to excite people the most). It's my job to inspire people to take some sort of action towards ending global hunger, either in their backyard or in any number of countries. It's a good job and I generally love it. It's an excellent transition to the Peace Corps, which is where, hopefully, I will be able to take the knowledge I have gained from Heifer International and apply it on a global scale. A portion of what HI teaches about is nutrition and health, and I can take that information and apply it directly to my future work with the PC.
In addition, NPR has some amazing free albums on it's website. I highly recommend checking out NPR's First Listen segment. http://www.npr.org/music/
Also, there's this great website out there that hosts MRIs of fruits and vegetables. They're beautiful, and everyone should look at them. http://insideinsides.blogspot.com
I've also been doing a bit of reading. As should be expected, here are the 38 second book reviews.
Get Me Out: A history of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank by Randi Hunter Epstein. This non-fiction book addresses the history of childbirth, and is a well-written and fascinating work that traces the taboos and trends of child birthing over hundreds of years. The author is well educated and it shows in a good way. Featuring everything from a short history of forceps to previews of the masturbatorium in sperm banks, Get Me Out both entertains and educates. It's shocking and amazing how childbirth, a very natural process upon first glance, has over the years been "adjusted" according to the scientific understanding of the time. I highly recommend this text.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick. The film Blade Runner was based on this novel, a classic work of science fiction that calls into question what it means to be a human and why it matters anyway. In a world that creates androids and then fears them, and where people long for the company of the animals they once destroyed, a reader like me can't sleep because she's wrapped up in the text. Called brilliant for a reason.
Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim. I severely disliked this unnecessarily sassy text that felt more like a trendy coffee table book than a real cultural history. This is probably because it is a trendy coffee table book and not a real cultural history. The only positive/interesting thing about this book was the catalog of historical kotex ads. Which are worth a look, mind you, but I won't be buying this one.
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum. Three cheers for Deborah Blum! This gruesome yet educational work (unintentionally?) challenges our acceptance of weirdo chemicals in our everyday products by showing how they have been used in the past in facial creams and alcohols, and how we've consequentially suffered. A fantastic amalgamation of chemistry, murder mystery, and underpaid employees' horror stories, The Poisoner's Handbook is a great reference book and a great story. What stood out the most in my mind is a tale of radium, which is structurally similar to calcium and absorbed thus by bones in the human body. So-called Radium Girls, watchmakers who absorbed a crazy amount of the stuff while painting watch faces, had so much radium in their bones and bodies that they exhaled radon. What! Did I mention this entire text is nonfiction? Rarely am I so downright entertained by historical text.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Tracing the lives of twins separated at birth by father applying a sick idea of "protection," The Memory Keeper's Daughter utilizes themes of family, fear, and the past to push forward an interesting and relevant story. It demonstrates the ability of secrets and skeletons in closets to weigh down and potentially wreck some lives, while potentially making others better. This read held my attention and I got through it pretty quickly. Not too sad, not too suspenseful, but not quite lighthearted either.
Alright! Have a good day, all!
