Why I Love Doctor Who

I've spent most of my life being a fan of some kind of science fiction series or another. I was one of those kids that never chose a side in the great Star Wars v. Star Trek debate because I loved (and still love) both of them. I mean, I will chew you a new one if you mess up and call one by the other ones name, but that's a different argument entirely. Farscape, Firefly, Babylon 5, Stargate, a short bout with Lexx, Dune, Aliens, Predator, all the countless one-offs of authors I figured I would try out and it just never worked. It's been a long, long time with science fiction, and it's all been awesome.

It's all space, and new planets, aliens, amazing technology, and humans doing every bit of it. Tiny, insignificant, stupid little humans amid all of this incredible stuff.

It makes sense, since it's our brainchild and whatnot, but still. I really like the thought of humans actually going out to the stars and doing all sorts of cool stuff. Especially in this day and age, when sciences in schools are suffering from budget cuts, as are the largest and most important agencies in the country, which are single handedly responsible for so many small daily things that make our lives better. I mean, where would this world be if we didn't have velcro? I certainly would never have had arguments with my mother in the Payless Shoe Store about what shoes I wanted, because I insisted upon the ones with the awesome velcro straps and she opposed my obvious fashionista choices. What kind of world would we live in if child and mother couldn't bicker about this important issue?

A terrible world. That's the one.

Humans play a role in each and every one of these aforementioned universes. We're ancillary in some cases, and pivotal in others. Normally our emotions get the best of us, and we're mocked for being small creatures, governed not by logic or any type of helpful thing, but our hearts. We also don't have any kind of interesting ability, like super strength, or psychic powers, so that kind of sucks. Earth is constantly getting fucked with, since we lack any kind of sound defense system, or widespread education to make sure that our population is actually informed enough to fight off some ruling power we don't agree with. They're all pretty accurate gripes with humanity, honestly.

The various sci-fi series I've been involved with have touched different parts of me - Star Wars was pure tech geekery and sparkly explosions and great music, Star Trek was the anthropologist that's always been buried in the deepest parts of my personality, Dune was the sheer complexity of the story. And it was with all of these beloved canons that I approached Doctor Who.

Naturally, given all of those in the back of my head, I hated it.

My family, for years, had told me I would love Doctor Who (the reboot). Unfortunately, I'm very stubborn. If someone tells me I will like something, I will usually approach it with an intent to NOT like it, just because. So my first passing of this show was met with my usual resistance, but I couldn't help but NOT like certain aspects of it. I particularly loved how the universe was saved several times by someone with goofy hair and Converse All-Stars. That really rung true with me.

However, aside from being stubborn, I also am not a huge fan of change, so when it was inevitable that we got a new Doctor, naturally I was both devastated and convinced that any new Doctor ever more would be subpar to my favorite one (if it makes any difference, I'm a Ten girl at heart). I actually spent weeks just being simultaneously sad and upset about the fact that some new floppy haired lanky Brit was running around calling himself "The Doctor" in MY Tardis. I was doubly upset when his companion wasn't as cool as my favorite one, because who could really top Rose?

I never even finished the series the first time through. I got halfway into the [at the time] latest season and then said fuck it and never revisited it. But it always stuck in the back of my mind. There was a part of Doctor Who that I really liked, and I couldn't really figure out what it was. I knew all the things that I hated - the really corny graphics and storylines; how it just felt like it was trying too hard always; the companions post Rose never seemed to quite fit as right as her (this goes back to my stupid opinion that anything after an original something is crap) - but I was never able to really put my finger on what it was that made me actually enjoy watching it. I felt both invested and indifferent simultaneously, and that was a very new feeling for me.

Since I've been home, and my family is all one big Whovian clan, we've been rewatching key episodes/seasons so I can get caught up in time for the Christmas special. As such, I've had a lot of time to rethink my opinion of the show, and I've come to a few important conclusions about it.

The first is that Doctor Who is actually awesome. As mentioned previously, I used to care that it was horribly cheesy and boasted effects that were straight out of the 70s. We can forget about the fucking Daleks and Cybermen, because they're echoes from a past age, and no one likes them, but they're still a part of this goofy universe. And that's really why I love it.

Doctor Who is goofy as shit.

It doesn't take itself seriously. It doesn't try to be anything else, because it can't be. At its best it's a story about a madman with a blue box, and at it's worst it's a story about a madman with a blue box. Either way, it's a story with a madman, his blue box and him traveling around in time with said box.

But what I've really come to appreciate are the undertones of episodes, and the unspoken themes that are carried out through the story arches in the seasons. Friendship, love, loyalty, loneliness, loss, hope, insignificance, importance. They're all pretty important and big issues, and somehow each episode makes you think of one, if not more, of these themes. They do so in really subtle ways, too, and that's why it's really awesome. The Doctor is the last of his race, and all of his actions are made with this fact in mind - that he is the last, and that ultimately he is alone. And that leads me to my favorite part of Doctor Who, which is the role humans have in it.

The Doctor is this ancient being who has seen and done a lot of messed up shit. He's constantly trying to come to terms with the fact that he's the last remaining member of his species, and that it was his own doing. Yet the only thing that keeps him in line and keeps him grounded is the human that he travels with. And sure, his companion is usually some super cute British girl (because god forbid The Doctor ever come to Upper Michigan and find me to go around the universe with, but I digress!), but the point still stands that his companions are smart, capable, and always provide him with some facet of an opinion he hadn't considered. Many times, they get mega noble (HA!!), or end up doing something reckless just because they care about him. The writers don't try to write out our human tendencies - instead they play them up. We're constantly doing idiotic things, especially for people we care about, whether they be physically insane or that of the emotional variety. And while many science fiction writers try to make humans sound more badass than we actually are, Doctor Who's writers kind of call bullshit on us and our stupid tendencies. They actually show us that it's ok to do certain things without knowing the outcome, or just trusting someone else, because at the end of the day you'll probably keep the universe from collapsing if you just shut up and do something you feel is right.

I dig that.

I also really love the character of The Doctor. I mean for starters his name is The Doctor. He fixes things with his technologically awesome screwdriver. He doesn't have a gun, or a crazy warship. He's got a time traveling police call box and this crappy screwdriver which can really only effectively lock doors and he still is able to save the world repeatedly. Call me stupid, but I like the idea of someone being able to problem solve without brute force. I like that he actually thinks and has to come up with solutions as opposed to besting his adversity through violence. Even Star Trek, which is arguably one of the most passive TV shows around (excepting of course the Dominion War and the last two seasons of Voyager), doesn't have the intellectual beef Doctor Who does.

I still miss my favorite combination of Doctor and companion (Ten and Rose), and I'm still sad a lot of times that I watch the show that I only got one season of them. However, Eleven is awesome, and Amy Pond has totally grown on me. She's snarky and smart and sassy, which are three things I always appreciate in a female protagonist. And Matt Smith is possibly one of the most adorably dorky guys on the planet, which is another thing I really appreciate.

And that's one thing that no other science fiction series has really been able to nail - the mega attractive guys. No clue what it is about scrawny, tall, smart dudes, but right now, between Doctor Who and Sherlock, Britain certainly knows what's up. Granted, the newest Doctor is way older than the previous two, so this statement doesn't hold true, but with Ten, Eleven and Sherlock they hit the nail on the head as far as internet fan girls are concerned.

And realistically, that's all that's fueling this whole post. Internet fan girldom. Also beer.

I've tried to not be one of THOSE girls, and I'm pretty successful at it most times. But considering a large portion of my life the last few days has been all Doctor Who all the time, and it for some reason has been really resonating with me, I figured I would let the whole world know how I felt about it.

Also, nothing interesting really happens in Upper Michigan, so why not write about Doctor Who?

Also, I need to stop updating this when beer.

Winter

I've been home for eight days.

It has snowed, or threatened to snow, for all eight of those days.

While I've come to the strange realization that I actually love winter in many ways, I'm not to Lorelei Gilmore levels of snowy adoration quite yet.

I can only drink so many cups of black tea and honey every day to stave off the crushing greyness that's outside, so today I took drastic measures.

Vitamin D pills. It's so good to see you again. Please fix my brain chemistry and make me feel like a person again.

Initial American Thoughts

I'm writing this after four days of being back on American soil, numerous showers, and in front of a space heater while my nails dry. I finally look like myself again instead of some ashy skinned tired-eyed hosebeast who smells like dirt and handwashed laundry (the song "I'm Sexy And I Know It" comes to mind...).

The flight from Tbilisi was probably one of the longest bits of anything ever. In the history of ever. Tbilisi to Istanbul to Toronto to Chicago, and then seven hours driving straight north. I've got to say, I'm highly annoyed by the lack of power outlets and free wifi in airports (excepting the Toronto airport, of course. Leave it to the Canadians to give us free wifi!). Is it really so hard to provide those things? I feel like it's not, and that it's just a way for them to force you to pay an exorbitant amount of money to enjoy lackluster speeds, all from a computer (or smart phone) that is perilously low on battery because you've been unable to find a god damn power outlet anywhere! And when you do find an outlet, it will inevitably be in a very awkward location, forcing you to sit on the ground and get questionable looks from other travelers, airline workers, and even the janitorial staff. But that is nothing compared to the puzzled glances and stares from the surrounding humans when I bust out The Rig.

Behold! The Rig! All together it's slightly larger than my head...

The Rig is the term of endearment used for how I get power to my electronic devices in Georgia. While many people have said, "Doesn't that all seem a bit excessive and superfluous?" I would argue that since I lack the capital to replace my computer, iPhone, or camera battery, no. It is not excessive, nor superfluous. Although, I think that something along the line is broken, as my computer tends to buzz a little bit, and I can actually feel an electric current when I touch the body. Probably not awesome for me or Helix, but that's kind of where we are at the moment.

Anyway. As I was sitting on the floor of the Istanbul airport, unable to touch my computer cause it was electrically uncomfortable, praying that both it and my phone would charge up fully before the 11 hour flight across the ocean, I kept having the feeling like I was getting stared at. And sure enough, whenever I looked up from the mindless scribbling in my notebook that was keeping me occupied, if it wasn't the judgmental Polish guys glaring incredulously at my power supply situation, then it was a young child who, after kicking my leg cause they didn't see the four feet of space I was occupying around the outlet, would stop their mother and point at me quizzically. 

Come on, people. You know the shortage of power outlets in airports. Also, if you would like to supply me with a monetary safety cushion to replace my beloved electronics, I will happily forego my crazy ensemble for electricity. Until then, move along! Nothing to see!

So onto my Air Canada flight I climb, mentally divvying up the time on the plane where I could listen to music on my phone, charge it through USB on my computer, and then still have enough juice for music for the last 4 hours of the trip through Toronto. And then, I sat down. And in front of me what did I see? What glorious sight was like a welcome reprieve through the desert of no electricity? The thing that has made Air Canada my new favorite airline on the planet. 

A USB plug AND a normal North American outlet?? I've died and gone to heaven! Why don't ALL airlines have this??

For the first time in months, I plugged my computer in and it didn't buzz. I could use my headphones while it was charging without having a weird feeling like my brain was being fried! It was magical!

And then I realized that maybe coming back, even if only for a month, wouldn't be so bad. I've been dreading more and more the return to America for several reasons, all of which have been seeming more and more daunting the closer my flight became. However, I'm happy to say that since I'm still in my "everything is so shiny!" phase, I've compiled a list as to why America is enjoyable right now.

1. Taco Bell is probably the most delicious thing ever. It may just be the pinnacle of Mexican cuisine. 

2. Hot, long showers every day.

3. During said hot, long showers, actually shaving my legs. However, having to use a pumice stone on them definitely brought down my awesome feelings. But now they're back to feeling normal, and no longer resemble reptile skin, so that's wonderful!

4. Painting my nails with nailpolish that stays on through showers, daily activities, and stern looks!

5. Cutting my hair with scissors! While I finally gave up on ever seeing my scissors in Georgia again and thus started cutting my hair with a Swiss Army Knife, the pure simple delight of trimming my bangs without the fear of a knife slipping and impaling my eyeball was magnificent! I even got crazy yesterday and gave my entire head a little update. In my uncontrollable zeal I found that since the front parts of my hair are longer than the back, I can actually tie them under my chin, thus making it look like a babushka. Naturally I chased my sisters dog around a little whilst rocking this do.

6. Two Hearted IPA is the nectar of the gods. 

7. Driving. Pure and simple. 

8. Central heating. My home in Georgia is only warm in one room, and that is not my bedroom or the bathroom. It's cool to not be freezing when I need to visit the latrine.

9. Wearing a combination of big stompy winter boots and my dumb black stretchy pants, thus making me feel like a character out of a science fiction game. I hate to be that bimbo that just cannot be bothered to leave her comfy black yoga pants to go out in public, but it lets me think that maybe today I might just get to shoot some aliens in the face, so deal with it, world!

10. Christmas lights! Flying into Toronto, I kept seeing all these colorful little blotches on the ground. And then I realized that they were Christmas lights on houses and trees! It was really nice to see, as no houses in Georgia really don these. 

11. Christmas in general. Christmas is my favorite. It means Love Actually, and Nightmare Before Christmas, and A Christmas Story, and listening to the Beatles album Love while we decorate the tree.  It's being a spaz with my sister and running around her house like a freakpants while putting up oodles of sparkly things and harassing her poor dog. 

12. Drinking a never ending supply of tea while wrapped up in a blanket with a space heater pointed at my toes, all to the wonderful joy of Netflix and its continuous play. I've missed you a lot, Netflix. I want to give your non corporeal little self a big ol' hug. 

Georgia Is Actually Middle Earth

I'm not going to lie. The very first thing I noticed when I did my preliminary Google search on this country was that the alphabet looked outstandingly similar to J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish. Naturally, I got ridiculously excited about this, and it sort of sealed the deal on my decision to come here. Forget the free ticket, the healthcare, and the promise of adventure and new things. No. It was that the alphabet resembled a fake language that I once knew and wrote a lot in. Oh high school...

The more time I've spent here, the more I've noticed that there are actually a lot of parallels between the fictional world of Middle Earth and the real country of Georgia. These range from the physical to the cultural, and there are so many that I'm convinced J.R.R. Tolkien had to have come here at some point in his life.

First of all, the most obvious - orthographic similarity between Tengwar (a form of Elvish) and Georgian script. While grammatically they are completely different (as Elvish is based upon Welsh and Finnish and Georgian is...well, Georgian), there are many similar shapes found in both of them, mainly of the curly variety. I messed up the drawing a bit, and used the hand written form of letters in Georgian. The formal versions of d, l and r (დ, ლ and რ) are way more Elvish looking when not being written by a spazzily excited American who's got chicken scratch handwriting in whatever language she's trying to communicate in. But you can see for yourself that they share many qualities.

Images courtesy of a Google image search.

Secondly, the landscapes are almost identical. Rolling green hills, wide plains, sharp snow capped mountains, and lush green forests are everywhere in both worlds. Even geographic parallels exist. Georgia has a dividing range of mountains - on the East are fertile green lands and forests where Samegrelo, Adjara, Imereti, and Guria lay, while the West side boasts the high plains and continental climes of Kakheti.  Middle Earth has this same type of mountain range down the middle of it, with the same biomes found in Georgia 1 - Easterly there are fertile green hills where the Shire is, while on the other side of the Misty Mountains are high plains and deep forests. Since Kakheti is on this Easterly side, there isn't a day that goes by when I look out over the Alazani plain and think, "Where am I? Rohan?"

Edoras or Sighnaghi?

Speaking of Rohan,  Georgia has it's own horse oriented group of people. Much like the skilled horsemen of the story, Georgian men from the small area of Racha have had a strong bond with equines for centuries. In fact, their horsemanship was so well known that in the 1800s several Rachan riders were brought to America by Buffalo Bill and were the stars in his show. Clearly, their popularity has declined over the decades, as now the fictional Riders are far more famous.

No, Google. I wanted the Riders that actually exist, thanks!

Next, we come to the Mines. Prominent in both worlds, the Mines of Moria and the Mines of Guria feature rare, precious metals that are highly sought after (mithril and gold, respectively). While I don't think the Georgians will be waking any evils in the depths of their excavations, I would hazard a guess that the overall safety of both mines is the same, as I doubt orcs and their ramshackle ways are concerned about danger for their workers, much like Georgians. Additionally, both of these lodes are reminiscent from days of older sovereignties - Durin and his clan of dwarves, and the former USSR.

Both lands have an ominous presence over the mountains (Mordor and Russia), as well as suffer from groups of people moving Westward (Elves and younger generations of Georgians). Both also have tenuous relations and long histories of invasions from their South Eastern boundaries (the Haradrim and the old Arab kingdoms). Both are very, very old, and sprinkled everywhere are relics of past dynasties in the forms of ruins, paintings, and even the currently inhabited cities. But perhaps the most interesting parallels between the two countries lie within the people themselves.

Georgians, as a whole, are a healthy mix of the four main races who dwell in Middle Earth - Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and, of course, Humans. Naming conventions are even similar. Gimli Son of Gloin, Aragorn son of Arathorn, Faramir of Gondor . Lineage, both genetic and locative, is constantly being used in the place of surnames in Middle Earth, and many Georgian surnames translate to roughly the same thing. For example, Makhashvili means literally "son of Makha." That's why there are so many "-shvili"'s in this country - they're tracing back their lineage with the grammatical conventions of their language. 

Humans in the Lord of the Rings universe are known for being proud, stubborn, good hearted, honorable, and have a knack for holding on to the past unflinchingly. These are not unique qualities to Georgia at all, as many groups of people from all over the world could fall under this category, but I wanted to make sure they were pointed out before I start comparing this culture to a short race with hairy feet who likes to drink.

Realistically, Georgians are Hobbits. Not physically, but in mannerisms and habits? Absolutely.  We're talking about two cultures whose main hobbies include drinking copiously, eating almost constantly, being social to the point where solitude is considered strange, and smoking. Georgians and Hobbits throw huge parties frequently, and both give very long winded toasts to prescribed appropriate subjects (family, friends, love, the wine, etc). Both cultures tend to stick close to their own borders, and the desire to go abroad isn't that common unless it's to send a young Hobbit to relatives in a different part of the Shire, or to send college bound Georgians off to Russia for school. Both groups are incredibly friendly and welcoming once they get over the sheer mystification of someone being a solo traveller, since their sociality is a given part of their daily life. 

Older men hanging out and judging the world as it passes - the popular mode of recreation for Georgians and Hobbits!

Georgians and Dwarves share a few key features, also - notably drinking (are you seeing a pattern here?), and singing. Dwarven music is usually a capella, much like Georgian traditional songs, and sung by men in several polyphonic harmonies. What I mean by polyphonic harmonies is that there is one tone, usually very basso and sung by one person who has really good lung capacity, that is sustained. Think of the drone on a bagpipe. The rest of the singers are trapped in whatever mode this one basso note dictates, and while they have a lot of variance in pitches within these scales, songs usually only have a few modal changes. 

Aside from having similar alphabets, Elves and Georgians are akin in a few surprising ways - I promise that drinking is not one of them! Rather, both cultures try to remain fairly aloof, preferring to take care of their own kind instead of interfering with their neighbors. Both are very traditional and stalwart in their ways. Their songs are long stories, almost sung poems, about heroes in ancient days and long lost loves. And while both are capable of great happiness, within every person there's a hint of a very deep sadness. It's a hard thing to describe, but it's something that I've noticed in many Georgians, and it's also mentioned in writings about the Elves.

Last, but certainly not least, and perhaps the most convincing evidence that Georgia is, in fact, Middle Earth, is the presence of red eye graffiti spray painted on a wall in Batumi. Now, whether I would rather have Sauron and his legions of evil, or the Russians and...well, more Russians, the jury is still out. Either one would be annoying to have invade, but I might be able to get some cool presents off of Elves if it's Sauron, so at this moment I'm kind of hoping for the Dark Lord. 

I have to say, having spent a large part of my childhood wishing I lived in one of the fantasy worlds that I always was reading about, it's cool to finally live in one. Because really, I bet Rivendell is right up this valley. 

Footnotes:

1. While this may seem kind of like a "duh, Jo" moment pointing out the similarity of climates which border mountains, I want to say that I doubt Tolkien did this intentionally. World building was not really a big thing back in the 1950s, and since he clearly placed mountain ranges incorrectly in accordance with any kind of tectonic plate movement which would result in mountains, as there is no way for mountains to grow at complete 90 degree angles, I find it hard to believe that he would really have given so much thought into making sure that the leeward side of the mountains was drier than that of the windward. Instead, I think he came to Georgia, said "holy shit, this is beautiful!" and based the structure of his world around the existing landscape. 

Seriously

And I'm stuck at school for another hour. Ugh!

A Belated Thanksgiving

This lapse in updates has been largely due to my time management skills and my notebook problem. I call it a problem because I have this strange urge to buy like a hundred notebooks at any given time, and keep highly specialized notes in each one. But then I get shy about it, and don't think anything is good enough to go into them, so I stop. A few weeks ago, I started an Ultimate Georgian Notebook (which is the title I gave it in my head), where I was slowly working through crazy linguistic books to try to learn this insane language. However, I discovered I was suffering from a huge amount of downtime at work, and so I just started writing random things in that notebook. It now has morphed into this stream of consciousness journal, where I end up scribbling all my thoughts in some sad attempt to feign productivity at school. Unfortunately, this means that my need to write things down in electronic format has declined. Not that this blog is a chore or anything - just that it was also partially therapeutic and it no longer bears that burden alone.

Another factor in this lapse has been my own personal psychosis about what my next post will be. Last week I started drawing out something for a post I've been wanting to address for a while now, and I got it into my head that there would be no other updates until that's done. As you can see, I've told my brain to get over itself, so you will just have to wait for the nerd post to end all nerd posts for a few more days.

Anyway, onwards and upwards! Since last week was the one day that Hallmark told us to be thankful for all the good things in our lives, I figured I'd make a post about all the stuff I'm glad about. And there's a lot, so buckle up, buckaroo!

First off, I'm thankful for the two Thanksgiving dinners I had this year. The first was with an American family who is now based in Telavi, and the second was a few days later with my TLG family. I'm rubbish with words, and a picture is worth a thousand of them, so I'm gonna do the rest of this via photos.

This past weekend, a small group of Kakheti folks went to Akhmeta to stay with a friend of ours. The original plan was to just bum around that part of the region, get a turkey, and have a little Thanksgiving dinner of our own. While we mostly stuck to the plan [mostly], a good chunk of the day Saturday was spent in the Pankisi Gorge. My friend's host mother's brother has a marshutka, and we each chipped in five lari for gas and got a private ride up to the gorge. The uncle was insanely friendly, and made numerous stops along the way for picture taking. Every time I meet someone new here, I fall in love with Georgia all over again. The generosity people have towards strangers is outrageous, and even though we might not REALLY count as strangers to him, this was our introductory trip with one another. He absolutely did not have to offer to take us up a crazy road to a beautiful mountain valley, but he did. 

In case you're wondering why Pankisi sounds familiar, just think back to 2003. This region,  very close to Chechnya, was thought to contain a terrorist cell of Al-Quaeda. Currently, the main demographics in Pankisi are not Georgians, but Chechens and Kists. The road up the gorge is littered with little villages, each one boasting a mosque. It's a very strange sight in this highly Christian country. We stayed with the main road, ignoring the little trails that branched out numerous times. I want to go walking down those at some point - maybe in the spring when we come back...

The end of the trail (or as far as the marshutka could go, anyway) is a dam and large spillway. It's currently dry, as the water flowing from this river goes into grates and comes out underneath the spillway. The dam is apparently a well known tourist attraction, as there are several ladders and a little path for you to climb. After clamoring over the ladders and stairs and bridges, you come out onto a large platform on top of the dam, where you can clearly see the waterfall. However, if you want to get closer to said waterfall, you need to cross the spillway, and climb up some slippery rocks and boulders to get a better view.

Naturally, we all decided we wanted to see that thing up close. I'm glad my friends here share the same stupid love I have for rule breaking (namely since there are no rules about anything here, let alone where you can and cannot go up in a gorge in the middle of nowhere). We had to cross this gem of a bridge, as well as go down several flights of stairs that were made in the same fashion as this.

I mean, why not have a bone in a pipe on a dam?

You can see the platform where the other picture was taken over in the right, as well as the spillway we crossed.  There were a few points in this climb where Chris's host brother, a 17 year old behemoth of a boy, pulled me to the rocks above like I weighed nothing. Even though my ego was slightly bruised by this, I got over it once I looked down the valley.

This was a rock formation opposite the waterfall. It looks like something out of concept art, and I'm thankful that growing up my parents encouraged me to question everything, including how something like this was made. The Caucasus mountains were formed when two tectonic plates collided, pushing the then Tethys seabed up and up. Over the epochs, and through a lot of volcanic activity in the region, the mountains have slowly climbed upwards, with their current composition being mainly shale, granite, limestone, and sandstone, mixed with metamorphic rocks from vulcanism. Wind and water erosion, paired with the ever present grinding of the Eurasian and Arabian plates, continue to shape this place. Anyone that says science kills the romance of nature is an idiot. That shit is cool!

The waterfall I've been going on and on about. While it might not make any lists in terms of impressive falls, it's still beautiful, and that is only magnified by the lack of people who've visited it. Call me an environment hipster, but I think it's pretty cool that the number of people who know about this particular landmark and have seen it with their own eyes is in the low thousands, and that I'm one of them.

I'm glad I'm janky as hell, and can use rocks and my camera strap as a tripod if need be. Spending all those years around weird makeshift Yooper things has certainly come in handy here!

The sky seems bluer in the mountains. I know it's not, but colors just look so much more vibrant in the fall afternoon light.

The road up the gorge follows a river that is full of huge smooth white boulders and small black stones. Most of the time, the water lies about 20 feet below the road, with no discernible trail down to it. However, there are so many little pools that would be amazing to swim in during the spring and summer, and we wanted to see them up close. So down the shale embankment and impending landslide we went, and over slippery round rocks we hopped until we got to this gem. The water itself is pretty deep here - probably at least 8 feet - and there's a series of little caves off to the right that go underneath boulders and trees. While I've got zero interest in checking those out, as I'm terrified of undertows and drowning (thanks, Lake Superior), I still want to spend a day just lounging in the sun in that water. Or maybe not IN the water, since it's glacially fed and therefor cold as a witch's tit.

Pankisi really is breathtaking. This was right before it started to lightly snow, so we got the sunshine and little sparkly snowflakes at the same time. It was pretty freaking magical.

What I love about the Caucasus mountains is that every time you think you're up so high you catch a glimpse of another peak and realize you're so not. Maybe I've got a weird inferiority complex, but I love things that remind me just how tiny we are, and these mountains definitely do that on a regular basis.

We ended up being very Georgian about our Thanksgiving; i.e. next to nothing in terms of planning. We weren't able to get a turkey, since Akhmeta doesn't sell them except for Sundays at the huge bazaar, nor were we able to find milk for mashed potatoes. In the end, we made sour cream mashed potatoes, some stir fried veggies, an Uzbek dish of chicken and rice, fresh homemade bread, pickled weeds called jongjoli, and lots of homemade wine. Not to mention the weird semi cheesecake that we made from yogurt for dessert. It was still an incredible meal, mainly because we were all on a high from the earlier adventuring in the mountains.

I'm thankful that I'm in this goofy and beautiful country, and that places like this exist on our planet. The mountains are incredible, and fill me with all sorts of really stupid happy feelings. I'm glad my parents raised me and my sister to do what makes us happy instead of what will make us money, and while I joke that sometimes I wish they had pushed me to do engineering or something useful instead of anthropology, I don't think I would be here if that had been the case. 

I'm thankful for my goofy little Kakheti family. When I joined this program, I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to find actual friends - that I would only hang out with other TLGers in some strange form of solidarity and not actual enjoyment. Luckily, the people near me are some of my favorites in the program, and we genuinely get along. They all have a healthy mix of adventure, hilarity, and downright goofiness in their personalities, which ensures that every trip we take together is always fun. I probably would have lost my shit if it wasn't for these mugs. 

Last but not least, I'm thankful for all my friends and family back home. It's not every day that you find yourself a group of people who are so thoughtful and care about you enough to chip in their hard earned money to buy you a super nice camera that has taken all the incredible pictures in this post. I don't know how I lucked out finding them all, but I'm glad I did.

Diet

Yesterday my sister bought new pants. She was very excited about them, and couldn't wait to tell me about her purchase when I came into the room. They're pretty cool, honestly, and if I could get away with any kind of skinny cut jeans (since that's ALL they sell here!) I would totally rock these.

My brother, in typical young-Georgian-boy-with-too-much-energy fashion, decided to try on these pants, thus upsetting my sister. But what made her even angrier was the fact that he could fit into her pants at all. She promptly turned to me and said, "I am fat! I need diet! I will start tomorrow!"

Now, my host sister is not fat by any notion of the word, and being a thirteen year old girl is rough enough without having to worry about body image. So I scoffed at her and told her she wasn't fat, which she giggled and shrugged at, clearly not believing me. I then told her that if she was dieting, I would, too, so she wouldn't be alone. Was I trying to show solidarity with a younger girl so she wouldn't be riddled with insecurities for the rest of her life? Absolutely! Is it also completely self serving so that my own ass doesn't grow exponentially from here on out? Absofruitly! Either way, she was surprised and excited to have someone to do this with, so much so that we even shook hands on it.

We spent a half an hour hammering out the details of the diet - no eating past 6 o'clock at night; no sugar; no chocolate; no uncooked vegetables; no bread; no khachapuri; no cake.

Fruits are allowed (which is hilarious to me, since they're basically just sugar and water, but whatever), as are cheese khinkali (Georgian dumplings), meats, and eggs. Milk is especially encouraged in the mornings. Lots of buckwheat, oatmeal, and noodles.

I don't really understand the logic in this diet, but I was willing to give it a try. At least until this coming Saturday, where I had already informed Ani I would break all rules during our janky Developing World Thanksgiving Feast, but that's another post for next week.

Cue today at school.

My coteachers celebrate a lot of things, such as their children getting married or becoming grandparents, with cake, pop, and khachapuri. Sometimes the chacha is even busted into. So it was really no surprise when I walked into the teachers lounge this morning and there was a gaggle of my fellow teachers hovering around a large cake and khachapuri, dividing it up. One of Nato's sons had just gotten married, so she had brought us all a treat to mark the occasion. As I walked to my seat a plate was literally shoved into my hands. According to the stipulations of this diet, I wasn't supposed to eat either of the things on said plate, and I even tried to fight it by saying I could not have it. This, of course, was laughed at, and I was told, "ჭამე." Arguing with a room full of Georgian mothers will never result in you getting your way unless your way coincides with what they want, so I [really happily] ate the khachapuri and cake, since they are two of my most favorite things on the planet and I am secretly a fat kid on the inside.

Feeling ever so slightly guilty, albeit way happy, I walked home to the ever waiting arms of Bebia. Bebia, my host father's mother, is currently staying with us while something happens to her house. I'm not sure what all is going on but she's very upset about the whole thing, and all I can get out of conversations with her is "bank" and "bad." She's constantly here now, lurking, waiting for me to even look at the kitchen so she can offer me food. It was almost a full half an hour of being home with her before she got all "ჭამე" on me, and busted out the tolma (Georgian dolmades - meat, spices, and rice stuffed and rolled into cabbage or grape leaves), cheese and bread. Not wanting to break my diet for the second time in less than 24 hours after agreeing to it, I politely ignored the bread. When she insisted I have some, I reminded her, in broken Georgian,  about Ani's and my agreement from the previous night. She laughed, waved a hand at me and said "It's fine, just don't eat a lot." Like I was crazy or something for not automatically assuming this.

I love that, in this ridiculously chaotic and nonsensical place, people are most logical about food.

It's wild to me that people here care so much about body image. I mean, coming from the United States, I'm used to it. Most girls I know have some sort of insecurity about something on their person, myself included, but I've always tacked that onto a First World Problem kind of thing - something we don't NEED to gripe about, but we can afford to, both monetarily and temporally. Diet, and weight loss, is a luxury that I've attributed to vast amounts of capital, which the US has compared to most other places, especially here, hence why so many Americans in my age bracket especially do four types of yoga and try a new type of diet every other month in addition to exercising an hour every day.

Many people in Georgia are undernourished and living just on the poverty line, yet meticulous care is given to how they look. Girls here dress strikingly similarly to LA women - heels, tight pants, low cut shirts, lots of makeup, perfect hair - and also strive for the ever desirable slim figure through dieting alone. Men either look like Gucci models, or hip hop wannabe's, but both genders smell amazing thanks to watered down Chinese knock offs of various popular perfumes and colognes. Not older people, mind you. This blanket statement is only speaking to the demographic of Georgians 50 and under.

It's a weird contradiction, like most things here tend to be, and I've been trying to suss it out. Is this obsession with appearance a new trend in Georgia's desire to be more Westernized? Was everyone here so image-centric during the Soviet years, or is this just one more way Georgia is culturally rebuffing Russian sovereignty for so long? When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

However, I will unabashedly admit that I was partially looking forward to coming to a country where people had bigger fish to fry than what shoes they would wear today. Having lived in LA for a few years, I was pretty burned out on self centered people who wouldn't even leave the house before looking like they stepped out of a fashion magazine. Since I am the complete opposite of that, it was really exhausting to be around it day in and day out, and it unfortunately started making me feel crappy about my own appearance. Which is stupid, but so are girl brains. Georgia sounded like it would be the perfect get away of all of the material crap that was driving me crazy in America. But it's the same shit here, except that my choice of clothes now marks me as a foreigner instead of only someone with bad fashion sense.

When I first arrived I was very concerned about fitting in. I wanted to make sure that I didn't get too weirdly American on my family and neighborhood, to the point where tanktops and shortsleeved shirts that showed my tattoo felt wrong. I didn't like spending too much time alone, which included walking around or sitting in the park by myself, because no Georgian willingly spends that much time individually. I even felt weird wearing jeans that were slightly baggy and bootcut, since neither of those things exist for women here. I meticulously kept my Converse shoes white, which was a hassle and a half on dirt roads. Even my hair, which is always slightly frizzy due to the shampoo I use and that it hasn't been brushed in months on account of me losing my brush, made me feel like an outsider. I was self conscience of people staring at me on the streets, because I knew that they knew I was obviously NOT from here.

And then one day, one glorious day, I stopped giving a fuck.

I was sitting outside of a cafe in Batumi with a few of my TLG friends and some random Georgians we'd met, and one of the guys caught a glance at my shoes. They were my Converses, and they were incredibly dirty on account of my having a busy few weeks of adventuring around and not cleaning them. So this ridiculously drunk and very sketchy Georgian kid asks me, incredulously, "Why are your shoes dirty? They are so dirty!" Internally, I was yelling at him. "Because they go places, dammit! These shoes are transcontinental! They've walked more miles than you clearly have, ever, and I've got better things to do than keep them meticulously white!" Outwardly, I shrugged and told him that they were my traveling shoes, which he seemed weirded out by and promptly stopped talking to me. It was strangely empowering, embracing those dusty shoes, and it caused an internal chain reaction.

I'm not from here. I'm from America, from a weird little town in the middle of the woods where I spent a lot of time crawling around said woods and being generally ungirly. I still like crawling around woods, and rocks, and fucked up abandoned places, and that's frankly hard to do in six inch stiletto pumps. I've climbed Half Dome, visited ancient monasteries, and driven 1,500 miles in two days, all while not being a size zero. Some of my favorite moments in life have been while I was utterly disgusting and feeling generally gross, tired and smelly, but I would never trade these for perfect hair at the time. And now that I'm here, wearing strangely cut jeans and dirty shoes, with messy hair and almost no makeup, it's clear that I stand out, because I'm not Georgian. I don't have to fit in here, because I'm not from here, and why try to fit a mould which isn't meant for me?

It's really nice to finally feel comfortable in my own skin. It's something that I've faked for a long time to a lot of people but it's great to finally believe the crap I'm saying and embrace my inner honey badger.

So look out, world, cause old Joey is getting what she wants!

And don't call me Joey!

Because really, who else but a tacky ass American would buy purple fuzzy bunny slippers from the weird little Chinese shop in her town? 

Daily Dose of WTF

I've learned to stop questioning a lot of my day to day routine. 

However.

When there's a space heater on top of the toilet, I really need to ask "why?"

Every Day I'm Chame-ing

Yesterday at school I had an interesting interaction with my teachers. It went something like this:
(Yeah, I'm sorry that I'm THAT person who writes stuff in a language system that you can't read, but I just really like the look of Georgian, and I'm not trying to be douchey about it, so apologies!)

One of the Teachers: ჯოანა, გინდათ ხაჭაპური?
Me: არა! გმადლობთ!
A Different Teacher: არა? მართლა?
Me: ხო! მადლობა!

Translated, this interaction went something like this:

One of the Teachers: Johanna, you want khachapuri?
Me: Oh, no! Thank you!
A Different Teacher: No? Really?
Me: Yeah! Thank you!


Five minutes later, they came back with khachapuri, and handed one to me with a declarative "ჭამე"(eat). We all laughed, and my English coteacher jokingly said, "We knew you wanted."

I'm not really going to complain, because khachapuri is, hands down, my most favorite thing in this country. I could, and usually try to, eat it at least once a day. Not the crazy boat and butter one from my previous post, but the more simple cheese filled bread that's common in my part of the country. I think my fellow teachers knew I was bullshitting them, and they absolutely called my bluff.

Well played, Georgian mothers! Well played, indeed!

Georgians sound incredibly bossy. This is largely due to how their language is set up. Being heavily context based, the things you say have vastly different meanings depending on how you say them, or where they're being used in a sentence. My host mom is pretty polite, by English standards, and will add a "თუ" to things, which is "if." So when I get home and she asks if I want food, instead of phrasing it like my teachers (გინდათ სარგომელი, აქა) she will say "თუ გინდათ სარგომელი, აქა" ("If you want food, it is here").

This applies to pretty much any kind of offering. Georgians seem to use the imperative a lot, but they don't mean to be the bossy that form implies. If they offer you a seat, it's not "have a seat," it's "sit!" If they ask you if you want wine, it won't be "do you want wine?" It will be "drink!" I caught onto this pretty quickly, and think it's hilarious that the second I'm around any kind of maternal figure she'll immediately start shoving food in my face and saying "ჭამე! ჭამე." Coming out of a very large and in charge Greek family that was constantly making me eat a lot, this seems totally normal, and if I take just a little bit of food they're happy and get off my back.

Talking to a lot of other people in this program, it sounds like they're having real issues with this facet of Georgian culture. I usually forget that not everybody had an in-your-face-and-lives type of family like mine, and therefor this might all seem very unusual. It's also strange to me that many other volunteers mistake the tone with which these things are said for being an actual command. I've yet to encounter a Georgian who offers you something with anything less than genuine hope that you're comfortable, be it a seat, a meal, a drink, or even a book.

Also, I'm finding more and more that even by Georgian standards I'm absurdly polite. I say "thank you" and "please" and even "hello" all the time, which is just not done here. If you know someone, you say hello. If you're at a store, you just ask for what you want, and don't need to throw a "please" onto your request. Certainly it's ludicrous to use "thank you" when someone hands you something you asked for, and then again when they give you back change from the transaction, and especially crazy when you leave! I'm slowly dropping some of these out of their daily use, but it's hard since this is something that's been engrained since I was little. Nothing is ever said, and I'm never openly laughed at for overusing these phrases, but there are little snickers and grins that tell me I'm being a way too happy spaz about buying some tea.

Blank Stares Abound

If you've been reading for a while, you know that I'm of the opinion that Georgian is hard to learn. Once you master the Elvish looking alphabet and its various sounds, which is really the easiest part to becoming proficient, you get to the bizarre structure of it [I say bizarre as it pertains to us English speakers]. Verbs have seemingly arbitrary stems which, depending on tense and person, you add different letters to. There are no articles and no prepositions because you tack these onto words in the form of infixes and suffixes, and in certain cases you even drop a few letters to make the word sound better. And if that's not enough, you're usually dealing with some throaty sounds that are absent completely in English conversation, as well as navigating dizzying consonant clusters that make you want to give up your first born for a freaking vowel to be thrown in.

It's a tricky language for even the most language savvy person, and Georgians know it. So foreigners are met with great enthusiasm and appreciation for even attempting to communicate in Georgian. But many times, if you try to say something you will be met with a blank stare. When you repeat yourself a few more times, you start to get more and more disheartened as confusion clouds the poor Georgian's face. Eventually, you will either start charading in hopes they'll understand, or just write out the word. You will inevitably get your point across, however, and they will say the word you wanted back to you and guess what - it will sound exactly the same as what you have been saying for the last five minutes.

Or at least to you it will.

I've been experiencing a lot of frustration in regards to communication over the last few weeks. Even with my coteachers, who supposedly speak English, I have to phrase things very simply so they will understand. I'm a [fairly] decent and eloquent writer when I want to be, and can construct pretty complex sentences in English. We'll count that as a side effect of speaking it for the last 26 years. So being plunged into a place where hardly anyone knows my language, let alone speaks above a certain elementary proficiency, has been a bit taxing. Which is fine! It's what I expected! It's just been strange to be on the minority side for once.

And that's exactly what I am - a minority. Being a Caucasian English speaking female has never before put me in this category, but in this part of the world that's totally what I am.

The upside to not being able to exercise my native language so much is that I'm picking up Georgian really quickly. I'm able to read at a fairly decent pace, and even in class I'm able to understand more and more what my coteachers are saying to the students. It's a good feeling, finally being able to frame and pick out small parts of what is happening around me. Of course, this good feeling goes away almost the second I try saying something in Georgian and everyone looks at me like I was prattling on in Chinese.

My friend and I were having a chat last night about our inability to communicate with people around us when she said something that has made everything else finally fall into place - Georgians aren't used to hearing non-Georgians speak Georgian.

Duh.

I mean, it's so simple.

As English speakers I think we really take for granted just how global our language is. It is dominant on two continents and one very large island, and that's only native speakers. We won't take into account the various other parts of the world where it's taught from an early age so that children are fluent by the time they're ten years old. We're used to hearing familiar words sound different due to the accents and influences of other languages. Australians and Brits are different from me, but I still know what they're saying [most of the time]. I've grown up hearing the various regional dialects present in America, so just because someone has a drawl doesn't mean I can't have a conversation with them. Accents have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I'm aware that I sound borderline ridiculous when I pronounce Georgian words, and I've accepted that for a while I will have a pretty bad American accent with it no matter how hard I try. Given the people I regularly speak English with here have similarly thick Georgian accents with English, I figure they've likewise accepted my crazily affected speech. And accept, yes. But that is not the same as understand.

Georgia has only recently had a steady influx of foreigners. Up until a few years ago, most people that spoke Georgian were actual Georgians, with the random Russian or Turk thrown in for good measure. This is not a large country, and aside from a couple secluded communities in the Greater Caucasus mountains who speak a different form of Georgian (think of the difference between French and Quebequois and you have the difference between Georgian and Mingrelian), there isn't really much regional variety in how people sound. External entertainment, like music and movies, is either dubbed in Russian or Georgian, with a few songs making it here in English. But you're still dealing with a group of people who, for the most part, never had to deal with obvious accents in their own language. And when you've never encountered different pronunciations of familiar words, odds are you will have a hard time figuring out what is being said.

It's strange to be an outsider. I refuse to say that I understand completely what Spanish speaking immigrants are currently going through in America, because that's just an outrageous claim, but I do sympathize a lot more with them. It's hard to be somewhere and not possess the ability to communicate your most basic needs. I'm very lucky here, as I've an incredibly supportive host family who patiently tries to help me navigate through their crazy phonics, as well as teachers who give me any resources I could possibly want for learning Georgian. I'm also lucky enough to know how to read, which is a pretty big game changer. So I'm off to a way better start than most immigrants in America, and I'm still incredibly frustrated by it. In fact, I've almost every single advantage I could possibly want when learning a foreign language, and by the end of most encounters I'm exhausted and feel like going to sleep for twelve hours to give my brain a rest.

It would be awesome if Americans could adopt the attitude that Georgians have to outsiders. Most signs here are in Georgian, English, and Russian. All of the ATM's and street pay boxes have multiple language options, with English always being one. Every single restaurant I've gone into has an English menu - even ones in tiny villages. And even though they can't seem to understand a freaking word I say other than "hello," "thank you," and "goodbye," you can bet your ass that every Georgian I've met gets incredibly smiley when they see me trying. I've never had so much encouragement for such blatant linguistic slaughter. Juxtapose this with many people stateside, who hate the fact that we have billboards in Spanish in predominately Latino neighborhoods. Or even my personal favorite, the folks who get irate when they have to "Push 1 for English" when calling a hotline.

Leaving your home country, and entering into a minority, is tough. It's hard even when you're educated and have resources, because you will be very different for a while. It's even more difficult when you don't have the tools to learn on your own, and you're forced to pick up the language through interaction. When you're met with hostility and general annoyance, you're going to feel self conscious and not want to try speaking their language. Instead, you will find other people who speak your language, and create self sustaining spheres inside the larger community and never fully integrate. Immigrants in America don't know English for a lot of reasons, and being lazy certainly is not one of them. They don't know because our whole cultural apparatus - schools, public buildings, signs, television, even the testing system for higher education - is biased towards the English language, and is completely bilingually unfriendly. As a whole society, Americans are fairly cold when it comes to helping foreigners on our turf. We've this strange sense of entitlement, like if you're going to live in our country you better learn the language before coming here, and if you don't then clearly you're just lazy and rude, when there are actually much larger forces in play that make this a completely unrealistic expectation.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: 
Next time you're frustrated by the cashier whose English is heavily accented, just imagine it's me trying my hardest to practice your crazy ass contradictory language in some vain attempt to fit into where I'm living. Cut people trying to learn English some slack, because for as wild as Georgian is, I'm pretty god damn happy that English is my first language.