fragments

Yesterday I went to the Minneapolis Bahá'í center for a talk by former member of the Universal House of Justice Douglas Martin, who happened to co-author the very first book that I read about the Faith. It was good; major points that I remember are: the need for Bahá'ís (and everyone for that matter) to be conscious of our position in history, to not be attached to old ways of doing things, to embrace change; that the Bahá'í Faith is intensely political, just not partisan; that we must walk a middle road, avoiding the extremes of always wanting change for the sake of change (for example, a completely new plan every year) on the one hand, and intolerance and fundamentalism on the other hand. We must learn to take "yes" for an answer from those who we invite to participate in our activities.

My sleep cycle is utterly out of whack. Last weekend I was up until past 5am three nights in a row, then there was a 4:30 earlier this week, then a 6:30 on Thursday, followed by sleeping until 4pm on Friday and 2pm yesterday. Last night after the talk I came home, did some reading, and fell asleep on the couch. I awoke at midnight and decided to go straight to bed, but couldn't fall asleep until 4am.

As I left Hard Times Cafe at 4am on Monday, I saw a box of HyperCard software and manuals, bringing back lots of memories. On Thursday, after showing my roommate my Bone Thugs Alarm Clock, I looked for and found some of my old stacks (programs I wrote in HyperCard back in the day) and spent a long time trying to get them to run on my computer. In the end I was successful, but what took hours could have taken minutes had I known where to look in the first place. So I stayed up until 6:30 playing with my creations from 1999. I'd like to get into some kind of programming again; it's enjoyable.

I just looked out my window and saw snow flurries. Not sure how I feel about that.

I have 3 tests this week, in Health Care for Interpreters, Latin American Geography, and Social Theory. The majority of the rest of my day should be dedicated to preparation.

The ocean of true understanding

Yesterday I went with some friends to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which reminded me that I had some art to share as well. I made these watercolor paintings at Louhelen Baha'i School this month during the Youth Eagle session:









They all depict the ocean, and the writing across them is the opening verse of Bahá'u'lláh's Kitáb-i-Íqán (Book of Certitude):

العباد لن يصلوا الى شاطئ بحر العرفان الا بالانقطاع الصرف عن كل من في السموات والارض.

"No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth."

Detachment is a concept that I've been pondering a lot lately.  It seems to me that it is very important to be detached, not only in the quest for mystical knowledge, but also to really understand the divers situations life throws at us.  It helps us to separate that which is true and meaningful from our vain imaginings and idle fancies and thus to make better decisions.

Minneapolis Bike Map Google Earth Overlay

In the past few days I've been doing a lot of biking and studying a lot of maps. I had the idea to draw a map of all Minneapolis bike paths and bike lanes into Google Earth, but it turns out that wasn't necessary due to the awesome Image Overlay function.

I simply converted the PDF map available from the City of Minneapolis website to JPEG and, using some points of reference, overlaid it precisely where it belonged in Google Earth.

You can easily add this overlay to Google Earth by downloading and opening the following file:

Minneapolis Bike Map.kmz (5.2 MB)

The key is visible in the upper-right of the map image. Basically, green lines are bike paths and blue lines are bike lanes. The opacity can be adjusted by right-clicking on the overlay in My Places and selecting “Get info...”.

Enjoy!

Final Papers

At times it seemed like it would never be over, but the semester has finally come to a close.  The last few weeks involved lots of stress and occasional feelings of hopelessness, but everything turned out well in the end.

I thought I would share some of the fruits of my labor, in case anyone is interested...

The first (in Spanish) is a translation of Chapter 2 of Ina May's Guide to Childbirth titled "What happens during labor" (haha, get it?  fruits of my labor?)

The second (also in Spanish) is about children of immigrants who are used as interpreters for their parents who don't speak English.  It discusses research done about them and the implications for other sociolinguistic topics such as language maintenance and change, language attitudes, and bilingual education.

The third (in English) is about marriages and transnationalism.  It discusses transnational endogamy (immigrants "importing" marriage partners from the country of origin) and intermarriage (immigrants marrying someone from the dominant culture of the host country), and their effects on integration and maintaining ties across borders.

The last (and sure to be the most controversial) compares and contrasts disaster capitalism, as described in Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine, and the Bahá'í Faith.

Comments are welcome.  (Plagiarism is not.)

2inspire.us

Last night I was up until 5am with my friend Eddie launching a new website. Working on it together for the past month or so has been a lot of fun, and we both have pretty high hopes and expectations for its success.

The idea is to create an alternative news source that spreads the word about progressive and innovative things happening around the world. Instead of being depressing like the mainstream news, it will excite and inspire readers. The stories will focus on four areas: Justice, Knowledge, Unity, and Creativity.

It is definitely the most complex site I have worked on, and I've learned a bit of PHP in the process. (My role is Web Developer and Editor – Eddie researches and writes all the posts at this point.) We will likely expand our staff in the future, so if anyone is interested in collaborating, drop us a line. In the meantime, we're trying to get as many people as possible reading and commenting on the posts. Tell all of your friends!

Link: 2inspire.us

El meu gener

My January will be full of stress and travel. My itinerary, starting tomorrow, is as follows (with no space in between, mind you):

4 days in which to write 13 more pages of a Pragmatics paper and study for a Translation exam.
1 early morning exam, followed by packing for...
4 days and 3 nights in Haifa, Israel.
3 days to say goodbye to Barcelona and study for a Semantics exam.
1 more early morning exam, followed by packing all of my things and embarking upon...
17 hours of travel across the Atlantic, followed by...
1 day in Wisconsin with my family
1 day moving back to Minneapolis
1 day to settle in and get ready for...
Spring Semester classes.

Phew. I can't believe how close all of this is to happening. It is absolutely crazy.

--
Also, at the end of December, I spent 5 days in the Basque Country in the northern part of Spain. Pictures can be found here.

Créixer / Masá'il

This week I've been reading a novel in Catalan called Tots els ports es diuen Helena by Joan Barril. I'm 65 pages in, and I'm really enjoying it so far. The other night, I read a few passages that I liked so much that I got out of bed to write them down in my notebook:

"Un dia vaig voler saber com eren els Reis i quan vaig treure el cap per la porta de la sala vaig descobrir la mare embolicant regals. Vaig maleir la meva curiositat, perquè a vegades el plaer del misteri és infinitament més gran que la certesa de tal com són les coses. Però la temptació de saber la veritat sempre és massa gran. Créixer és no negar-se a buscar."

"Créixer deu voler dir explorar i acceptar la vida tal com l'anem descobrint, fent-li preguntes amb la mateixa naturalitat amb què la vida ens dóna respostes."

Translated into English:

"One day, I wanted to find out what the Three Wise Men looked like, and when I peeked my head into the living room, I discovered my mother wrapping presents. I cursed my curiosity, because sometimes the thrill of mystery is infinitely greater than being certain about how things really are. But the temptation to know the truth is always even greater. To grow up is to not refuse to search."

"Growing up must mean exploring and accepting life as we find it, asking questions just as naturally as life gives us answers."

I didn't realize it at the time, but it is a very befitting concept to be pondering at the beginning of the Bahá'í month of Masá'il (Questions).

A Flag of Hands

A friend brought it to my attention that Juanes has a new album. One of the songs on it is called Bandera de Manos. Since I couldn't find an adequate translation of it into English, I decided to try my hand at it: (ha!)

A FLAG OF HANDS (Bonus Version)
Juanes, La Vida Es un Ratico

Let’s all make a flag
A flag with black hands
A flag with white hands
For a better world

Right now, let’s all make a flag
A flag with mixed hands
A flag with immigrant hands
For a better world

We’re tired of hearing
The same old outworn stories
Tired of so many unfulfilled promises
Let’s lift up our souls and voices

Let’s hold a demonstration of love
Show that war is no excuse to continue like this
Burning the skin of your hands,
Which are my hands
Of your soul, which is as my soul

How ironic life can be:
While thousands die of hunger
Our leaders buy arsenal and sow agony

Let’s all make one flag together
Let’s all break down barriers
For a better world
Right now, let’s sow peace
More justice, more dignity
Freedom, equality
For a better world

The original Spanish lyrics can be found here.

Flying

It was a blustery autumn day in Barcelona
The wind carried me on my boomerang
Past fallen palm branches
And motorcycles, lying in the fetal position on the pavement

Dried leaves scattering about
Sign posts wobbling to and fro
I zoom by effortlessly
Down the diagonal