Winter in Review

Hello Internets.  I am reporting live from sunny Santa Barbara.  The sudden flux in temperature leads me to believe that I am indeed on spring break, but I'm never on vacation!  I do believe it is time to take the last 3 months and rip the positive experiences out of their decaying husks and put them into glass jars to admire for the years to come.

As hilarious as that sounds, that's what I do.  I've learned a lot about the world and especially myself in the last few months, but a lot of the time those good experiences come hand in hand with a serving of guilt, anxiety, or frustration.  I've gathered a lot of information and decided I need to make a few key changes to my behavior in order to lead a better life.

First of all, I've been awfully hard on myself this quarter.  I expected a lot of results in my tutoring endeavors, but thanks to a lot of feedback from my friends and teachers I see that even the tiniest amount of progress amounts to a lot in the end.  I felt like I wasn't succeeding as a tutor because I couldn't help my student pass his English class, but I also have to just settle for the fact that it's not entirely my responsibility.  Ultimately, I learned so much patience and understanding from this experience.  And just because someone has trouble expressing their ideas in words doesn't mean they're unintelligent.  Language barriers are frustrating, and these kids face a huge pressure to get results in such a short time.  I wish I could empathize but at the same time I am grateful for being dealt this hand of cards.

Additionally, I want to learn to be a straight shooter.  I've noticed a small split in my personality in which I feel all too safe behind a computer.  I find it easier to express my thoughts in an e-mail or blog, but in reality I should be learning to express myself as well in person.  I don't like the idea that I have to withhold my thoughts in the moment in order to write about it later.  Yes, that gives me time to think about an issue, but at the same time I'm giving in to the fear of being judged.  There's something daunting about seeing a reaction in someone's face that causes me avoid the issue until I'm safely behind the digital veil.  Perhaps I'm just tired of being awkward in person and collected over the web.  So to wrap that up, I'm trying to fight my dependence on technology as a social crutch.

I'm also cogitating on my awareness of world events.  Last year in Denmark, Nicole and I agreed to pay more attention to the happenings in other cultures in order to be more aware not only of how fortuitous we are but to identify inequality and injustice in its more subtle forms.  It was a momentous undertaking at the time, and I regret to admit that my good intentions fell through the cracks.  After 8 months, I find myself becoming increasingly isolated and I'm trying to push away from the overwhelming knowledge that makes everyone feel like the world is going to explode.  I've been a bit conflicted about the curse of globalization.  I feel like the expansion of this awareness is beyond me sometimes.  I find myself unable to truly care about all the natural disasters and horrors I see on TV and the internet.  Perhaps I've become so desensitized by this type of news that nothing seems to really strike a chord with me anymore.  I suppose this is the part where my mom would blame all the violent video games for my behavior.  I know I'm being excessively logical and ignoring the emotional component, but natural disasters happen and will always happen and displace and diminish the human population (among many other species).  There will always be some culture to cast its shadow on another, pointing out all the flaws and inhumanities, so it seems futile to try and care about everything.  I feel a bit cold-hearted and hopeless about "strangers", so I really just focus all my attention on people I know in the real world.  And that's just the sad state of things, considering that all people are potentially friends but we're merely separated by location, age, gender, socio-economic status, and so on.  In short, I want to find a way to tear down my mental barriers and open up to more cultures... but for the moment it seems forced.

That's about all I have for the time being.  I'm looking forward to another quarter of tutoring to see if I can add my little ripples to the pond and do some good (Thanks, Allison).  I'm trying not to let my shortcomings mar the little steps I've made, so for now I'll latch onto that.