Dear America, Get Your Shit Together

I live in a veritable la la land. I'm able to amble through my days without even a second thought as to what's going on in the news, preferring instead to lose myself in various types of fantasy, science fiction, and even just plain science. It's a pretty awesome life, and I really enjoy it. It keeps a certain level of pleasantness about everything, since all the world news does is put me in a fowl-ass mood.

But occasionally I get knocked back to reality, like when my friend tells me that there was a shooting near her small town in Oregon. Occasionally I have to face the fact that there's a whole other world that exists outside of my happy little bubble, and I get angry.

I get angry especially when I find news headlines that read "Reynolds High School shooting in Oregon is the 74th Gun Incident on U.S. school campuses since Newtown."

Are you fucking kidding me?

It's been roughly 77 weeks since Sandy Hook Elementary School was shot up by a fucking sociopath, which means that we, America, are averaging close to one school shooting a week. And that's just gun related violence in a building which made national news. That number, I'm sure, is actually scarily higher if you include after school shootings, close-but-not-on campus shootings, or child on child shootings.

And I used to think that it really was a problem of gun control; that if we could just curtail the rate and ease of how people buy guns then somehow everything would magically be fixed. But after living in a god damn shitshow of a country, where I could buy a fully automatic weapon and no one would even bat an eye, I don't think that's it. I don't think gun control alone is going to solve this problem, because it's a psychological problem.

Calling it a psychological problem seems strange to me, since it reminds me of all those theories about video games ruining youth, violent movies corrupting children, and all the other bogus ideas that sprang up following the Columbine shooting. And let me be perfectly clear - coming from a girl who saw Predator at age three, and has grown up playing games where the whole basis is to shoot and kill other things - that is not what I'm saying is the cause of this.

Americans suffer from a bad case of Americanitis, a disease where someone feels entitled to be able to do whatever the hell they want to whomever the hell they want because they've got Freedom, and Freedom means no boundaries. Shootings on the street, in alley ways, at movie theaters, in parks - whatever. Those I expect from a place that thinks everyone should have a gun on them at all times to protect themselves from "the bad guys," and given our current gun laws I'm not surprised when I read about them.

But in schools? Really? I mean, it's got to be the definition of irony when suburban families feel terrified sending their kids to their local public school when they specifically moved out of a dodgey gang-ridden ghetto in order to avoid school related violence which is so common in those neighborhoods.

Yet it begs the question - where, then, is safe?

Our homes aren't. Nor are our entertainment centers, or shopping malls. In the woods you might be shot for trespassing accidentally, or being mistaken as a deer during hunting season. They're all public spaces, where it really is the proverbial mixing pot of people that America always touts it is. Elderly, middle age, mothers, fathers, kids, bachelors - everyone shares these public places with everyone else.

Schools were supposed to be safe. They're filled with children, and the few adults who work in them only want to help expand the kids minds and make them rethink a few things they once considered universal and true. Schools are where kids escape bad home lives, where they have a support group of friends, where they can immerse themselves in good and interesting books.

Now our schools seem to be on some perverse Russian Roulette wheel of where the next shooting will be. It's getting to the point where it's not a question of "if" or "when," but "where," and as someone who has a buttload of friends in various educational institutions across the country, as well as a father who is a professor at a university, that's a horrifying and chilling thought.

I know a lot of people expressed concerns for my safety when I told them I was coming to Georgia, and they're not necessarily unfounded; Russia is right there, and they're unpredictable and seemingly hellbent on bringing back the USSR 2.0; Chechnya is also unhappy and recently had violent skirmishes; Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria are a proverbial hop skip and a jump away. As a female, most of my basic rights are often times ignored or disregarded. As a foreigner, I'm automatically lumped in with the likes of Donald Trump and people try to squeeze me for every penny I have. I've almost gotten eaten by gigantic dogs, died in fiery car crashes where not even my teeth would remain for identification purposes, been in cars where the driver is so drunk he's having trouble standing yet he's somehow able to navigate down a hillside backroad.

I've almost died a lot of times here, but I've never felt unsafe in the sense that bodily harm would be caused to my person by another human being maliciously.

Part of that is that I actively avoid things I would find sketchy in America, like drunk men smoking in a dark alleyway. I don't mess with them. I go the long way around if I have to, but I don't put myself in any situation where something shitty could happen. And while I've always been of the preemptive mentality like that, I still felt like I could die from a lunatic with a gun at any given moment when I was living in Los Angeles and Austin. That feeling just isn't even present here. And quite frankly, I'm not sure why.

Yes, it could just be me being naive and thinking that Georgia is some magical wonderful place where nothing bad happens, but I know that's not fucking true. This is a country where kids in schools are regularly beating the shit out of each other, where kids rip small animals apart without a second thought or even a reason, where animal and domestic abuse just isn't talked about even though they're both wildly rampant, where bullying is a built in part of daily life.

And even with all of that. Even with the knowledge that I am, ostensibly, surrounded by sociopaths, I feel safer here than I do in America. Deep down, I think it's a cultural difference, where the same patriarchal shit that infuriates me constantly also provides a safety net for kids and women. Plenty of people here are shot - the park in my town had a shooting two months ago, and there are so many fights in it at night that the police refuse to answer calls to break them up because they've been attacked and beaten one too many times - but they're limited to men. Men attack other men. They leave kids out of it. They leave women out of it. Kids don't viciously attack each other, because they're kids, and you don't do that until you're grown. Call it weird, but it's a certain type of traditional honor code that America lacks.

Who knows. I'm probably way off base about all of this. My mind is ridiculously scattered, I'm so irritated from reading about this.

All I know is that America needs to shape the fuck up. This isn't a simple problem of gun control - it goes deeper. It's a class problem, and a race problem, and a bullying problem, and a victimization problem. It's people lashing out, being unhappy, being scared, being tired, feeling like there's no way out. It's thirty thousand problems all messily entwined with each other, and it is absolutely horrifying to think that I'm coming back to a place where violence on little kids by the public - not the military or government - is so common and has been so completely unaddressed for so long.

Way to be a "developed" country, America.

You're lucky you have Taco Bell, IPAs, and an adorable dog, otherwise I would not be on my way back.

Skolashi

After being in the schools for over a month now I think it’s high time for a post on my school that delves a bit more into what’s going on. This is going to be part one, as I doubt I will be able to get everything out of my system without it turning into a novel.

Please note that I have no formal training in education, and that my opinions are all coming based off of having a crappy anthropology degree, as well as being the [successful] result of  crappy American public schools.

I guess the place I should start first off is my schedule. I’ve classes Monday through Friday, with four classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, which are my heaviest work loads. Yes, you heard me. Four classes in one day is the most I work any given week. The rest of the days are either one or two classes. The grades are 1-6, and although TLG strongly encourages us to get into the upper grades (7-12), I’ve elected not to.

Sidenote: I did attend a few of these classes when school first started, but I was way more of a distraction than a help to older kids. Most of them are uninterested about school and their normal teachers to begin with, let alone some random foreigner, and the ones that actually are engaged in class will endlessly hit you with a slew of highly personal questions every.single.class, much to the frustration of your host teacher. I figured it would be better if I just stopped going to these lessons…

So the whole purpose of TLG, and indeed why I am here in Georgia to begin with, is to put native English speakers in English language classrooms around the country. It was a radical new program that began a few years ago by the [at the time of this writing] current president, Mikheil Saakishvili, and it brings in people from America, Canada, and the UK. It’s a pretty great set up, actually. They fly you from your home country to Tbilisi, pay you every month, put you up with a host family that can take care of your dietary needs and creature comforts, give you health insurance and paid vacation, and will also fly you home at the end of your contract.

It used to be that they had two start dates every month, putting the number of foreigners, each month, at 120. Lots of people that did this program were just looking for something to do for a short stint, so they didn’t really invest themselves in the schools or with their families. Some saw it as an opportunity to convert this highly Orthodox country starting when they’re young, and one person was so bold as to actually lock the door of his classroom when his teacher stepped out for a moment and then start preaching his Bible to a whole room of kids. There are horror stories like that riddled throughout the programs history, so it’s no wonder that since last year they’ve cut the number of start dates to two a year and are highly selective with who they bring over. 

Volunteers are not expected, ever, to lead a class, nor teach the students by themselves. Instead, we work with the current English teachers, bringing our Western ideals into the school and helping the kids hear what English is supposed to sound like. When I say "Western ideals," I am basically talking about any type of education method that does not rely on the strictly Soviet style of read-translate-memorize which is so rampant here. 

My two coteachers are on opposite ends of the spectrum. One has been teaching for only a few years, but she's enthusiastic, open to suggestions for activities, lesson plans all the time with me, and has a pretty positive outlook on lessons. The other has been in the teaching business for 47 years. In fact, she had my host dad as a student. While she isn't as super Soviet as other teachers that I've heard of (no corporal punishment, for example!), she never deviates from the read-translate-memorize method I mentioned before. And since she has been teaching for 47 years, and I am her third volunteer, I doubt she's really going to be changing much. Both teachers are technically fluent in English, but their pronunciation of words is highly accented, and there's still a language barrier with them many times. This isn't to say that either of them aren't helpful - they really are, and I'm not trying to bash on them at all. I actually like them a lot, even the older one, who can get slightly terrifying sometimes when she screams in Georgian at the kids. I'm just trying to paint you all a picture of what, and who, I'm working with. 

The books we're using for the early grades are part of a new movement throughout Georgia for teaching English. They're decent enough, and there are a lot of exercises in them that make sense. However, they're ONLY in English. Immersion teaching is awesome and all, but that only works when it's part of a unilateral movement in school and home every single day. Most of my kids have English lessons two or three times a week, with long stretches in between. Added onto that, many times both my coteachers end up speaking mostly in Georgian, and these kids are talking roughly, and this is a very generous estimate, 20 minutes a week in English. Do you know anyone who was able to pick up a language with that little of practice? Cause I don't. 

I can understand for some abstract words, like adjectives and what not, to have a Georgian pairing so the kids can frame the foreign word in their head. However, for vocabulary that has a picture there's zero reason to even think about saying the Georgian word. I've tried to bring this up with my teachers a few times, but they keep reassuring me the students won't understand unless they tell them what it is. I'm skeptical about this, but since I have no idea what they're saying to the kids in class anyway, I'm going along with it for now. Upside is that I'm picking up a lot of vocabulary. I just wish the kids would, too!

The other thing that really bothers me is that these books focus so heavily on reading and writing. There isn't nearly enough practice for the kids to actually speak, which is unfortunate, given that this is where they're really strong. Instead, they’re forced to do the same type of exercises over and over again, never really understanding what it is that they’re saying. One of my coteachers told me the other day that, even in Georgian, kids don’t know what verbs, nouns, or adjectives are. My students are all scraping by based on the examples given in the books instead of freely constructed thoughts. Yet examples aren’t necessarily a guaranteed way to get them to form a sentence since many can’t even copy words down correctly. It’s strange, because they’re not stupid. If I sit there and verbally spell out the words, most of my kids can write them (minus the illiterate ones, of course), but they don’t really put together what the words mean in the overall context of the sentence. I’m going to go ahead and blame this one on inconsistent classes, and having English be the only lessons where the materials are encouraging new types of learning (matching, word banks, fill in the blank, etc) in their otherwise very Soviet style schooling.

So instead of encouraging the kids to speak a lot, and thus actually let them progress quickly through this bullshit language of ours, we bog them down by forcing them to read and write. Most of them don't understand the use of capital letters since Georgian only has one form of their alphabet, so all of their written answers have random capitals thrown in. Classes are full of frustrated students who feel left behind and like they are ultimately hopeless cases. I try to be as positive as I can, and always reinforce kids even TRYING to speak, and they're just now starting to get less shy about yapping at me. Most of them now run up, throw their arms around me in a hug that only a kid can give, and then immediately launch into Georgian at a million miles an hour, giggling when I look confused and say "ar vitsi" ("I don't know"). I'm hoping that this shift means that they'll all start being more involved, and since a few of my more problematic kids have already begun actually doing their homework and volunteering answers, I think we're on the right track. 

Classes are a bit chaotic since speaking out of turn isn't really discouraged. A lot of times lessons are filled with kids talking over each other, or them helping each other out immediately if one is having trouble reading something aloud. It's really cute, actually, and you can see that already in these young ages the cultural dynamics of community and cooperation are instilled. Also, every single kid here would be diagnosed with ADD in the States. And I’m not exaggerating. Even my really awesome kids, who are [mostly] quiet, always do their homework, can recite entire stories at the drop of a hat if you tell them to, would be too “unfocused” and “problematic” in America.  The problem most of the time is the disparity in mastery of the material – a few students per class have it down no problem, some kids are sprinkled in the middle who sort of get it, yet most will fall into the category of not having a clue. The best kids get bored with lessons so they zone out, the worst ones get frustrated by lessons and will just stare into space, and the mid range kids see all their friends being distracted so they, too, become unfocused. And then the teacher screams and stomps her foot, and for a second they’re startled, but nothing really changes. Repeat ad nauseum.

There are no real consequences for bad behavior or not working in class. Grades are sort of given, and while students want high marks their drive to get them is not enough to actually put the work in to earn these. So far we have had one test in my 4^th-6^th grades, and they, for the most part, all failed it. We’re talking scores of 2/40 points failed. Again, it’s not that they’re stupid, because the tests we gave them were straight out of their book, and were all exercises they have been doing for weeks. There’s just zero retention of the material, which is a problem I’ve been trying to tackle but find it challenging when my teachers don’t share the same mindset to sit and drill kids (in fun ways!) until they can answer quickly and accurately. I made flashcards for my first graders for colors, and after two meetings, and two pretty intensive flashcard games, you can bet your ass that those kids can tell you what color your shirt is, and that the leaves on that tree in your yard are green. My one teacher noticed what I was doing with the flashcards, and saw that it actually worked, and has started approaching the alphabet reviews we do in the same way. Even though a few letters still trip them up, these little five year olds are able to identify most characters out of context, and pretty quickly. Being the daughter of a behaviorist, this tickles me.

The only thing that works better than flashcards, however, is Hangman. I never saw my fifth graders try harder than the day we told them if we got through our whole lesson and they understood it that we would play Hangman at the end of class. Everyone was actively engaged, and even my shiest kids were particularly vocal. The best part of it was that after that lesson, they remembered everything from the previous class. They were all smiling, were super happy, and we have yet to have a bad class since this breakthrough. Who knew that bribing some kids with a lousy game of Hangman would ultimately be the proverbial Holy Grail of learning English?

I guess when it comes down to it, bribery really is the way to get what you want out of life.  

This is a page out of my third graders book. I forgot to mention above that while these books fundamentally are decent, they piss me off. The vocabulary that's taught is completely bogus. I think it's outrageous that by third grade, my kids don't know the days of the week, or months of the year, or hell, even ordinal numbers! However, they can tell you all about a space rocket, and Ned the astronaut that lives on a space station. Thanks, dicks.

Stuff and Things

We received our placement information a few days ago, and I've been too lazy to properly talk about it, so I guess that changes now! Kakheti is the easternmost region of Georgia. The capital, Telavi, is slightly smaller than Marquette, sitting around 21,000 people. That's where I'll be - living with a host family who has their own house, complete with an indoor toilet, indoor bathroom, and (WHOA) internet! I'm pretty stoked to meet them. As much as I like Tbilisi, I am way more excited to see the rest of this country, particularly the city which is considered to be the most medieval city in all of Georgia. Why is Telavi medieval, you ask? Because it has ruins from four very different time periods - something no other city can boast! It is also in the middle of a vast reconstruction. All over Georgia, renovations on buildings are taking place to make them more livable and safe. Sighnaghi, another city in Kakheti, recently underwent this update, as did the old capital of Georgia, Mskheta. P.s. I find it endlessly amusing that Georgians keep calling Mskheta the "old"capital as if it was the capital back in the 1700s, when they last had a long stretch of independence from the Russians. In reality, they're really referring back to about 500 A.D., when Mskheta was the capital before King Dachi moved it to Tbilisi. I love that in this part of the world, old is actually fucking old, instead of referring to something from 1936 or whatever. It's pretty awesome. 

We head out to our assignments on Monday, and then apparently have a week to get used to our new families, meet the school teachers and principles, and just kind of chill out for a couple days. That will be nice. Maybe then my brain can slow the hell down and process this jumble of information known as the Georgian language.

There are lots of super neat things about Georgian that I really like, but am having a hard time grasping being an English speaker. First off, it's got a completely different alphabet. And while I really love it, and can basically read it flawlessly now (to be fair, it's at the speed of a 4 year old just learning words, but still!), there are times when it tricks me. I find myself many times writing a Greek letter instead of the Georgian one I want, even though I know the Georgian one. The same thing happened when I was learning Greek, though - I'd constantly be thinking of French words and slipping those in conversations instead of the Greek vocab I knew. So maybe this is just a case of my brain rewiring itself. Whatever it is, it's pretty annoying, because I KNOW what it should be, yet out of habit write something else.

Secondly, Georgians use postpositions for shit like "to" and "from" (-ში (-shi), -იდან/-დან(-idan/-dan)), and you just replace the last vowel of the word, or add onto it. Now, that's pretty cool, and it actually makes a lot of sense, but it's strange sitting there forming a sentence which in English has four parts and only having three words in Georgian. For example, "I am from America" is "მე ვარ ამერიქიდან" (me var amerikidan). The "from" is wrapped in the last 4 letters of the third word. Subsequently, I can change those last three letters to mean I'm going TO America, or I am IN America, and so on and so on. It's really a strange thing to get used to. Also, I have to say that this is the first time I'm learning a foreign language that has no genders, and it is so fucking awesome I cannot even stand myself.

Thirdly, plural forms. So, Georgian does the same thing English does to pluralize objects - that is, add an -s to the end of the noun. I really like that it does this, as it is one of the few really easy things about this language. However, you only ever add the -s when it's a general term, like "tables" or "cats" ("მაგიდას" (magidas) and  "კატას" (k'at'as). The second you have any kind of absolute number, like "3 tables" or "5 cats" you drop the -s, because the number already means it's plural, and the -s would just be redundant ("სამი მაგიდა"(sami magida) and "ხუთი კატა" (chouti k'at'a). Logically, that is awesome, and makes absolute sense, and I get why they do this. But my stupid English speaking brain hates this. Subsequently, I make the mistake of keeping the -ს a lot when I shouldn't.

The last bit that has been the hardest to grab hold of is the different p, ts, t, k, and various guttural ch sounds this language has. My awesome linguistic savvy sister sat me down one night with a bottle of wine and tried explaining the various aspirate sounds that a few of the letters represented. Now, I have to say, after actually hearing them in use I'm starting to distinguish which "t" to use, or which "k" to use. Hell, I can even tell you which "p" is which! But this fucking language has three different types of a sound like the "ch" in Greek and German (think of Bach if you need to verbalize this), with just SLIGHT differences. And quite frankly, when its nestled in between a sea of other consonants, with only one vowel in sight, they all sound basically the fucking same. These three letters, ღ, ჭ, ხ, are giving me hell. Again, I have no doubt that living in a household where these sounds will be commonplace will help dramatically with individualizing them. I'm not being a pessimist or anything, or throwing the towel of defeat in from now. All I want to do is strangle those three little symbols.

This has been a very rambly post, so I'll end it with some pictures of this place. Because seriously, it's so pretty I could puke.

Artwork in the Metro stop at Rustaveli Avenue. Probably for the Rose Revolution, if I had to take a shot in the dark...

The church in aforementioned "old" capital, Mskheta, called Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. I was bad and took pictures inside when priests weren't looking. This church has tombs of several old Georgian Kings, including the last one, George XII, when Georgia became a protectorate of Russia in 1800. 

Vineyard in the church courtyard. I wanted to eat one, but figured God was already pissed enough at me for  walking around such a venerated place with nothing on my head, so I didn't chance it. Georgia apparently has something wild like 9,000 types of grapes. 

InstaRage

I'm a little bit ashamed to admit it, but I use Instagram. One might say I am way too into it, as I am sort of unabashed about checking it 900 times a day. To be fair, I really dig following National Geographic, and most of the photographers who work for it that also use this social media platform. It's pretty awesome to be able to see test shots, and a small sample of the numerous amazing, unpublished photos that don't make it to the final printings. Plus, depending on the photographer, they will usually add a little description about how they had to wait 4 weeks to get the perfect shot, or talk about the kind of elements they had to sit through for hours all to get a timelapse. Or, in this case, the challenge of shooting a fairly regularly scheduled geyser with one of the first methods of photography.

It's pretty incredible, that wet plate collodion process. And it's wild to think that our digital cameras, which are capable of so much, came from the very basic, yet complex, medium format cameras from the turn of the century. After I converted my bathroom into a super janky darkroom so I could develop photographic paper shots out of the pinhole camera I made, I have a supreme respect for early photographers. Especially ones that were out in the wild, trying to capture bits of these undiscovered lands for themselves and others enjoyment. Do you know how hard it is to light tight shit? I mean, I had the help of aluminum foil - these guys had to carry around entire booths where they could prepare the camera, and then develop the shot immediately. Mad, mad, mad respect. 

As a quick semi related sidenote, I am also an internet junkie. One of my favorite things to do is read YouTube comments,  which if you've ever taken the time to actually read them, you know they're just...not really worth reading. But sometimes I get amused by various forums and message boards online where people feel the need to discuss things, so occasionally I will read the comments on Instagram.

A quick scan of the comments for this particular picture left me very irritated, so naturally I went digging for more. Amidst the praise and the awe most people had, a few comments stood out to me, so I've compiled them in one file. I've even been super nice and blurred out their names! Look at me being so diplomatic!

First off! Good for you and your point and shoot! Do you know how many people can sit at the scenic outlooks and snap a quick pic of it when it's erupting and it's going to look similar to that? Shut up.

Cool story bro? Seriously? Even if this guy didn't mean to sound douchy, and even if he legitimately thought it was a cool story (cause to be fair, it is!), those are three words that just drip with sarcasm no matter what when posted online. Shut up.

Take it with a real camera?!?!? WOMAN! He took it with an ORIGINAL TYPE OF CAMERA!!! WHERE DO YOU THINK MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY CAME FROM!??! Your opinions and your crappy bandana are bullshit, not this mans picture. Zip it.

I don't really understand how someone can be blase about our national parks. I really don't. Like, even the Grand Canyon, which is just a big hole in the ground, is fucking beautiful! And Old Faithful is unique, and is on a natural timer, and how can that not be as great as you thought?! It shoots out like 30 feet straight into the air! It's ridiculously cool! Are you upset that it doesn't sing Justin Beiber?! Is that why it wasn't as great as you thought? 

And finally, yes. It would have been faster and easier to just use a digital camera. But half the fun of photography is working with your camera, and interacting with your surroundings, and waiting for the perfect moment to actually take a picture. I still like to shoot with film on a regular basis, just because there's something really awesome about not getting the instant gratification of knowing what your picture looks like right that second. And when you only have a fixed number of exposures (in this guys case, 1!), you're more thoughtful, you plan and frame things out, you pause more. It's a completely different experience than shooting digitally. 

As Shepherd Book, from Firefly, so eloquently puts it, "...cause how you get there is the worthier part." That's what this picture ultimately is. Peter Essick could have used his ridiculously awesome DSLR to take this shot, and it would've been beautiful and an overall great picture. Instead, he chose to actually work for it, to make something completely unique and out of the ordinary, and have a far more memorable experience. 

The TL;DR of this post:

Don't read comments on Instagram because they are, for the most part, idiotic and just will make me rage.

Photography is awesome.