An Excuse for a Photodump

I'm a big photography fan. I think it's an incredible medium, capable of freezing entire moments in time unlike any other human invention. 

While I wouldn't really count myself as an excellent picture taker (or excellent lexicon user!), I do tend to harbor a lot of happy feelings for all of my shots, especially kitchy ones. A friend and I once had a talk about how pictures aren't necessarily about capturing amazing shots, but more the memories they represent. Most of my favorite photos aren't the best ones - they're the weird few seconds that made me smile the most, or something completely random that caught my eye and made me laugh, or they're the ones that I use a crappy iPhone app to get. 

This is my favorite type of picture to take.

If you don't have Incredibooth, and you're on iOS, it's a pretty fun camera. Most people use it like you would a normal photobooth - a sequence of shots of themselves and other people making silly faces or trying to look all sexy. Unfortunately, the one person that I like looking silly with the most is on the other side of the country or planet from me usually, and my sexy face is pretty much...not... So I've reallocated this app as my go to panorama taker. Not ideal, for sure, but I always love how they come out, and that's sort of all that matters!

2012. Note how the first few are just ridiculous and I wasn't using it right at all. And then around San Francisco I get my shit together! We've got Yosemite, Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Harlow Lake, Lake Superior, Phil's, more Lake Superior, woods, Harlow Lake again, and another Phil's, all wrapped up in a neat little boxes.

2013. Lake Superior,  Lake Austin, Texas highway, Lake Austin, Yellow Dog River plains, Lake Superior, old abandoned mines, Lake Superior, Mskheta, Telavi, Prometheus caves, and the Black Sea. 

Anyway, this is the last photodump (if I'm friends with you on Facebook, I'm way sorry about the 145 pictures that I just uploaded and probably spammed your wall with!) for a while, as tomorrow I head back to Telavi and the land of tethering my 3G iPhone for internet.

It's also 2am and I really need to try to get back on a normal sleep schedule again, so I should probably do that.

And no, I'm not jetlagged.

Not a panorama at all, but a goofy bunch of memories. I got a red light ticket while living in California, and had to take a morning off of work to go to court and deal with it. I was annoyed about having to actually cough up the $400 for it, so I took a detour up to my favorite beach before I went in to work. So I'm on the beach, looking at the waves and freaking out about how I was going to pay this ticket when I got the silly idea to go running around the waves and try to get shots of them. So I did. For like a half an hour, it was back and forth in the surf with Incredibooth snapping away until I was satisfied with the amount of slides I got. It was a good way of forgetting about the massive amount of money I'd soon part with, as well as a wonderful little break before going in to work. I highly suggest it if you're ever feeling stressed or upset about something.

This is an interactive post about churches!

How many churches can you see in this shot of Old Town Tbilisi?

[hint: you might need to move your mouse over the picture if it's not loading properly...this is my first time composing everything in HTML and some stuff might be a little janky]
[p.s. In regards to the title, it's only "interactive" because of this sweet mouseover image I made, and that you have to click on "read more" to actually get to the post. So if you were hoping for some Angry Birds level of interaction, I'm sorry to disappoint!]

The answer is ten. Eleven if you count the church courtyard from where this picture was taken.

I'm mobile, bitches!

I've finally gotten my iPhone all hooked up to Georgian cell towers, so check my badass self out! Subsequently, this might become more like a Twitter feed, with numerous smaller posts, but I'll still do big uploads every few days. Gotta keep things interesting, after all! 

I'm currently sitting in the teachers lounge at school. This is the fourth day so far, and I've a break between classes, so I figured I'd give some first impressions on being a teacher. 

First off, English is stupid. I've known this for a while, but having to teach all the rules and stuff to kids, and watch their tiny heads explode from definite articles, prepositional words, and messed up spelling, has only solidified this opinion. Especially coming off a language like Georgian, which fundamentally is logical, simple, and whose alphabet is specially tailored to it. Also, these kids start learning English and Russian in first grade, on top of Georgian. So that's three different alphabets, three different grammatical structures, and three different pronunciations. Georgian kids are badasses, and I am officially done complaining about how hard it is to learn a language. 

Secondly, the staff here has not disappointed in terms of hospitality. They all are very welcoming and nice, and always try to talk to me either in broken English or my ridiculously bad Georgian. I think it's funny that no matter how hard you try and inevitably slaughter the language, they will laugh at you, but then help out. Being from a supportive, somewhat mean family (I say "mean" because we all make fun of each other a lot, and that's how we show affection...), this isn't that out of the ordinary. I also really like it when they make fun of my abysmal Georgian and then hand me a cup of chacha and make me eat dumplings and cake. 

My coteachers have also asked me if I like Georgia every single day. It's like their go to "we should try to talk to the retarded American" question. This question also, every day, inevitably leads to "do you like Georgian men? Do you want a Georgian husband?" I've found that men here know one English word - "boyfriend." Any time I try to use an excuse like "Oh, I have a boyfriend in America," which I totally don't but I don't feel like being endlessly courted by men here so I lie, all the men in the room erupt in ridiculously hearty laughter. They then tell me they've heard that before, and since Georgian men are the best I will soon change my mind. Given that I can't cook, and they sure as hell can't either, if I ever did end up with a Georgian man we would shortly starve, so I think I'll stick to non Georgians for now. 

Finally, the school itself is...if I said rough shape that would be giving it way too much credit. It would fit in well in Detroit, lets say that. The walls are fucked and cracking, I've yet to find a light that works, the stairs have holes in them, the railing is messed up, and some rooms have that musty "haven't had a breeze blow through in 40 years" smell. But none of that matters. The kids don't notice, and neither do the teachers. All the rooms have drawings on the walls, and posters and flowers and curtains and tablecloths on the front desk. After I initially noticed all of these negatives, I stopped seeing them. 

The kids are all very bright, very enthusiastic, and they pick up on things incredibly fast. One of my co teachers called this school a big family - she meant it literally, as we have several pairs of mothers and daughters, sisters in law, brothers in law, etc. But it also functions as an extended and unrelated family due to it's size. My biggest class is 10 kids, the smallest is 4. The kids all know, respect, and generally like their teachers, and there is a level of familiarity present that you don't really find Stateside. 

So these are just first impressions, and I'm sure they'll change and that come mid semester I'll be frustrated by something. But for now I'm gonna just chill and suss out my place in this crazy chaotic workplace. 

Telavi Life

My host mom is a pretty impressive woman. She wakes up at about seven in the morning to get breakfast going and gets ready to work, then she puts in a full day of teaching at the preschool. When she gets home at four, she starts dinner, or makes a little snack, and then starts cleaning around the house. This has lately meant tidying up the construction area on the second floor. Why she has to do this, I’m not sure, but I do know that today it included not only bits of leftover wallpaper, but also a random hypodermic needle just lying on the floor. Cause you totally need that when you’re renovating upstairs bedrooms. Oh, and we also threw gigantic twelve foot long planks out the second story window. And threw a few doors out said window, also. And hauled a gigantic tarp full of wallpaper scrap down to the backyard so we could light it all on fire.  And then just left this huge pile of trash burning while we went inside and chatted with a neighbor. I guess when you don’t have a landfill system, or some kind of environmental bureau on your ass, it’s pretty much do whatever the hell you want with your garbage!

It’s funny, because Georgians make a lot of stuff happen with very few materials. They are the masters of jank. They’ve perfected it, and it is super impressive. Subsequently, having spent a large chunk of my life surrounded by Yooper jank, the Georgian way of doing things doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. My mom and I walked up the road and went down a little trail yesterday to get some water out of a pipe in the side of the hill that spits out a really heavy stream (ha, period joke, boom) of ridiculously cold water. We filled up a huge jug with it, brought it home, and then she disappeared out back with it. What it’s for, I still have no idea, but I know damn well that it’s most likely essential for the house running, so I’m not going to question it. Our house has a seemingly unending supply of water out of the faucets – all the sinks and shower work, and we have a washing machine. What that jug was for I am at a loss, unless Georgians have secretly found a way of creating shitloads of water out of a few gallons.  Although, considering they are just now getting scientists and agriculturalists back in the country for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting “brain drain,” I find this highly unlikely.

I think my favorite part so far (I keep talking like I’ve been here for a long time, when it’s really only been like three days) is when my mom and I get some fruit and go walking down the street to Leah’s house, where we sit out front and they judge the everliving shit out of all the cars driving by and the noisy kids playing down the street. It’s nice to just sit and listen to them, and I’m finding myself able to pick out words here and there, but more importantly discern what some of the verbs are and how they’re being conjugated. Of course, that doesn’t help me at all, since I still have no idea what the fuck they’re referring to, but whatever. It’s progress, and I’m gonna chase that feeling! Although, if my brain could shut the fuck up with the Greek internal monologue I have going when I play the “what would I say to this question” game, I’d really appreciate that. However, the overall feeling - the camaraderie, the affection for each other, the loud talking and laughing and closeness the neighbors all have - reminds me a lot of being around the family in Chicago. It feels very natural, and very familiar. It's nice. It's made me really happy that I grew up with an insanely animated, loud, everyone-in-everyone-elses-shit family, because that's what these communities are. 

While I'm over the moon happy to be here, I find myself almost breaking down on a near daily basis. It's like I look at a tree, and am just so happy that this tree has figs that I can pick off the branches from the street, and it fills me with this crazy affection to this tree and I almost start crying out of happiness about it. And forget the mountains. Or the buildings. Or the people in general. It's all just making me so happy I can cry. I finally understand my mom and sister at the end of Homeward Bound, when Shadow comes limping over the hill and Peter runs over and they're reunited. I used to make fun of them when I was little, because why would you cry when you're happy? I swore up and down from ages 5-24 that I wasn't going to be that person that cried whenever they were happy, and now I'm totally one. Although, I haven't actually done it in front of anyone yet, because I don't want to be THAT person in the program. Bully for me, I suppose! Anyway, it's hard to really express how I feel about this place, other than it feels...right.

On a less serious and deep note, because whoa...

My house currently doesn't have internet, as a car ran over the cable and it's out (what?), so I've found a few places nearby that have free wifi. It's weird not being able to just hop online whenever I want, and it's doubly strange not being able to use my iPhone to look things up whenever I want. I resigned myself to not being able to have constant internet, and I figured it wouldn't be that bad to deal with. And it really hasn't been bad. But a few of the kids in the program thought ahead and brought unlocked smartphones with them, so they were able to get a micro SIM card from TLG. Know how much the data plan here is? You're all going to punch me, but for 15GB of data (so about 5 times what you probably have with Verizon or AT&T), it's 5 lari to set up (3USD about) and then 50 tetri a month (so like .26 USD). Yeah. I don't think I'm ever fucking leaving this country. Anyway, now that I know this is a possibility, it's just sitting there, tantalizing me. Every time I look at my iPhone it's basically just snickering at me, saying "Haha, you fool! How could you not even think to unlock me! I'm supposed to be a great international phone! What were you thinking!!" How's that for being a shitty First World Problem? "Wah, I went to a place that has an unstable power grid and didn't think to unlock my ridiculously amazing smartphone so I could have 3G coverage while there, all so I could look up pictures of cats whenever I wanted! Womp womp!" 

I'm trying really hard not to be a shitty American about things, and I think so far I'm doing a pretty good job. The smartphone thing, though, is a tough habit to shake. Especially since I never really realized just how MUCH I used it. It's making me slow down a bit, though, and not worry about what everyone else is doing around me, and focus more on what all is right here. I've been drawing a good bit, and reading some Emerson, cause apparently traveling abroad is also forcing me to go through a transcendentalist phase, which is something I never thought would happen. 

All that being said, I'm totally about to call Verizon and throw a shit fit about things until they unlock my phone, since apparently they were giving my mother a hard time about it. I figure with my iPhone unlocked, if anything, I'll be able to text fellow TLG volunteers with a normal keyboard again, instead of the archaic keypad typing that was popular back in 1999. That's really why I want to switch. Plus all of the lolcats. We can never forget the lolcats.

My little TLG-provided phone. He's awesome, and it's like doing a time warp back to being 18 and texting with the old brick phone we used to have, but damn. Go hug your touchscreen keyboards, everyone. Tell them how much you love them, and appreciate them!

Still a crap shot, as the Caucasus mountains are under a seemingly perpetual blanket of fluffy cumulus clouds, but this is about  four steps out from my front door. Rough life, eh?