Winter Update

It seems that it's time for me to face up to the fact this this blog is updated seasonally... not much of a blog, I guess. Nonetheless, here are some pictures from the past few months. It should be fairly easy to distinguish Chicago from Curacao, sadly.

[Pictures, in order: me and Lexie in "3 Jews and an Atheist do Christmas"; Sara, Julia (home from China, yay!), Meg, and me having an Arlington/YHS reunion; Amy, me, and Britney... oh wait, that's Sarah (haha) hanging out; Ben and me celebrating Chanukah with the family; the view from Ken and Ellen's in Curacao, followed by Mom and me in Curacao; and a few snowy pics from Chicago, the first is of my apartment building and the second of the park across the street.]

A few words about Fall Quarter, since it's long since past: with much angst and indecision, I finally ended up taking Religion in 20th Century America; Theorizing Religion; and Intro to Religion and the Human Sciences (required). All of the classes served their purpose well--I got to consider issues of narrating the near-present in 20th c. America and did research on the development of Muslim political organizations; I benefited from having some theory shoved down my throat; and really enjoyed my required class, which explored approaches to the field/study of religion and asked important questions like, What the hell are we all doing here anyway? Though many of my peers resented having to take this class, I found it to be precisely what was missing from my education at Harvard. I continue to regret the trend toward overspecialization in academia and feel that background--or, more precisely, common ground--enabling scholars of different traditions and perspectives to communicate is falling by the wayside.
Enough on that rant though...

Unfortunately, Hyde Park is no Cambridge and though I love my apartment and its proximity to school, I long to live somewhere with more stuff. Everyone (uh mostly) is nice and wicked smart, so you know... I'm making some friends, hanging out.

Okay, on to the joys of the Quarter System: classes ended right after Thanksgiving and finals were over the following week... it created for much chaos, though I was home by December 10th with a month of vacation. Fabulous. I read the last Harry Potter, followed by other less good literature, and spent a lot of time with family and friends. It was great to see Sara, Meg, Julia, and Mindy--the first time we've all been in the same place in years! Following Christmas, my mom and I left to spend a week scuba diving in Curacao. Needless to say, this was wonderful. However, less than 36 hours after arriving home in VA, I was on a plane back to Chicago.

And this pretty much catches me up: I'm halfway through Winter Quarter and work is piling on (likely the reason for the blog update--what I really should be doing now is writing a paper). This quarter I'm taking Modern Arab Monarchies (Family, Religion, and Power); Israeli Politics and Society; and Intro to Historical Studies and Religion (required). I chose classes this time around with much less anxiety, basing my decision solely on what was interesting. Though perhaps not the most sensible method (in terms of PhD aspirations), I find myself much more content with what I'm doing in the present.

All the rest: Chicago has been snowy and frigid--today's high is 3 degrees!--and I think I have a permanent winter cold. I've been doing copious amounts of baking, as running the oven keeps my apartment warm and banana bread just makes everything better. My new year's resolution to remember why I love running is off to a rocky start, though I'm determined to make 20 miles/week. I finally got over my it's-not-possible-stance and got on board with Obama. I manage to leave Hyde Park on occasion--going this weekend to my first and absolutely amazing modern dance performance downtown with my friend Genie--but mostly I'm closeted away in the library. Speaking of which, it's time for me to sign off. I'll be back... in a few months or so.

Chicago Marathon

I had high hopes for the marathon--this, despite the fact that I pretty much took the month of August off and never really made up for it in September, as well the hideous weather forecast for race day.

So I went out with the 3:30 pace group (8 min/mi) and hung with them until around mile 10... then I got slower... and slower. It was in the upper-80s by 10am and the sun was unrelenting. The teen miles were the worst, but I seemed to get a new resolve around mile 20, albeit an even slower one. In the end, I finished in 3:53. Not a time that will get me to Boston, but given the conditions and the comparative times and experiences of other runners, I feel pretty good about it. I am recovering fairly well, though I think I'll be down a couple of toenails by next week, one of which is going out in dramatic fashion. (Sorry if this is more than you wanted to know, but it seems important to me right now!)

I must say that I was mostly oblivious to all of the horrible things that happened during the race, though I did see a number of people getting, or attempting to get, medical help. I think I was far enough ahead that I was not affected by the water/Gatorade shortages--indeed, I was one of the people "misusing" the water as a way to cool off. What's more, I had no idea the race was canceled until long after I finished. Reports about the events of the day seem to vary widely--between race officials and runners themselves--but more details are available in the Chicago Tribune and in a Time article.

In other news, it was great to see Scott and Sara for the marathon, and my mom was also here for it, and then stayed over to celebrate my birthday yesterday. This celebration included some napping on my part, but we also went downtown and out for a great dinner.

Anne Marie's Wedding

I'm here, in Chicago, for a 2nd attempt at grad school. (Since it seems that whenever I say "more on that later," I never, ever return to the topic, I'm going to skip that locution this time...) Classes started last week and I skipped town last weekend (deja-vu, Amir and Sigalle) to go to Anne Marie and Brian's wedding in Wheeling, WVa. Seemingly geographically challenged, I flew from Chicago to DC and then drove to Wheeling. However, this afforded me some quality car time with Mindy and Sara and a chance to see the family for a bit on Sunday.

I don't know how to put in to words how wonderful it was to see Anne Marie so happy and in love, other than that it was pretty wonderful. Meg and Michael drove up from Charlotte and Teresa came in as well, so we relived some of our better (and worse) high school moments. The weekend was far too short, but I'm excited to see Sara and Scott on Friday for a little marathon fun!

Home

We arrived home Thursday night and I am getting over my jet-lag and attempting to adjust to life without a daily serving of gelato. It's rough.

More details to come, but for now pics of both Italy and Turkey are online here. (I added some explanation for the Italy ones and hope to get to Turkey soon!)

Italy

It's been hard to find time to be online, so I regret that I left Turkey without writing much about my trip... maybe I'll be able to offer a recap later. But for now, it's on to Italy! I got here a week ago... arriving into Milan after some more very serious f&ck-ups in Istanbul, caused by United mistakening canceling my plane ticket. Really.

We picked up our car the next morning and thanks to the navigation help of our little GPS, arrived in Bellagio, on Lake Como, in the afternoon. The GPS is pretty accurate, though it did choose a route that required us to put our car on a ferry... unexpected. Lake Como is beautiful and we enjoyed our time there, leaving after 2 days for Venice. Venice was delightful and charming, though the water ferries and small, unmarked walking streets take some getting used to. I'm writing now from Florence, which I have been to twice before, but it is a great city and nice to be here again. Tomorrow we head for Monterosso, one of the towns of the Cinque Terre on the western coast. I'll try for pics soon!

Photos

Blue Mosque, Istanbul


View of the Bosphorus, across Galata Bridge


Baklava... yum


Harem at Topkapi Palace


Fairy Chimneys in Cappadocia


More landscape in Cappadocia


After the hike to Uchizar Castle


View from our hotel in Kas


Sunset in Kas

More from Turkey

I tried to post some pictures last night, but the Windows system is in Turkish and I was unsuccessful. In the meantime Cat and I have arrived in Kaş, a small vacation town on the Mediterranean coast. It was a harrowing overnight bus journey, which lead us both to wonder if we are too old for this kind of travel!

Kaş is surrounded by beautiful mountains and the water is blue and warm so we happy. (On the other hand, the temperature is also warm... over 100!) We went out on a dive this morning, ending up somehow with a German operation, but the divemaster was very good and we are planning to go out again this afternoon. Tomorrow we will go for a kayak trip to Kerkova, a "sunken city" a short distance from here. The day after, we head back to Istanbul. More soon...

Turkey: Arrival and Then Some

Though I'm happily traveling around Turkey now, my travel got off to an unfortunate start with a four-hour delay at Dulles. This caused me to miss my connection in Amsterdam... which was preceded by serious anxiety and panic as I tried to figure out an alternate way into Istanbul that didn't delay my travel by a day. I held my ground at the rebooking desk in Amsterdam and succeeded in getting on a direct Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul that actually arrived before my intended itinerary (traveling via Zurich). Fantastic for me... not so good for my luggage. It did not get rebooked and was nowhere to be found. After three days of washing my clothes in the sink and obsessively calling the unhelpful folks at Turkish Airlines, I went to the mall. Catherine was a trooper and spent a couple hours with me picking out a new wardrobe. Of course, as luck would have it, my bag arrived that afternoon after spending some time in Frankfurt. I was able to pick it up at the airport just prior to catching a flight to Cappadocia, where I am now. I know this bag stuff really isn't interesting, but I've been preoccupied with it for the past few days!

Additionally, however, we also did a whirlwind tour of Istanbul, taking in the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, cruising down the Bosphorus, going to the hammam (bath), and wandering the streets of Sultanahmet and Beyoglu. I'm currently writing from Goreme, a town in Cappadocia, which is a region in the center of Turkey. The topography and rock formations here are absolutely incredible and I hope to post some pictures soon. Tonight we take a night bus to Antalya, a city on the Mediterranean coast. In the meantime, here's a map of Turkey if you want to follow along (Goreme is near Nevesehir).

Return of the Blog... ?

I don't know if anyone checks here anymore, but wanted to offer a little update and, perhaps, hint at a revival.

After packing up all of my worldly belongings into an unbelievably small crate, I left Cambridge for good in May and returned home to DC. (The belongings, God-willing, will show up in Chicago in September.) I've spent the past two months kicking around here, doing very little except running.

In more interesting news, I leave on Sunday for two weeks in Turkey, followed by three weeks in Italy! And while my record of late is pretty poor, I anticipate posting some stories and pics while abroad. Stay tuned.

Where in the World...

Places I've been:


create your own visited country map

Though I'm not much of a country-counter, I saw this on a friend's site and thought it was pretty cool. I must admit that red China (double entendre) is a bit unfair as I never made it past Beijing.