from one oxonian to another...

so, just preparing my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow (very first! totally pumped!!), and was reminded of this quote by dear old c.s. lewis. it's just too good not to share:

‘the practical upshot is this. on the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. each time you fall He will pick you up again. again He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. on the other hand, you must realize from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. that is what you are in for. and it's very important to realize that. if we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resisting Him after a certain point. i think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do, and we should be obliged if He would now leave us alone. as we say ‘i never expected to be a saint, i only wanted to be a decent ordinary chap.’ and we imagine when we say this that we are being humble. but this is a fatal mistake. of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. but the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.’

hehe - don't we all just think we're simply "decent ordinary chap[s]"? the lesson is on "the chosen generation," based on 1 - 2 Peter, and dang. it's a goodie. i can't wait for tomorrow to share it with these lovely teenagers. we all need to be reminded of how divine our nature is time and again, no?

beijos,
jooj.

yay.

i love thanksgiving. it was always the best growing up in villa park - using the fancy silver, going to a matinee after, marie callendar's pumpking pie and mom's stuffing! aah! so this year i told toni we have to stay away from the libraries and seminars that day and celebrate proper: spend all morning cooking, then eat around 3pm. also planned: seeing the new "wuthering heights" movie later that evening. proper p* fam thanksgiving, right? :)

but in all honesty. i remember driving up to sundance at the start of january this year, with mom's leg in massive pain from her surgery, dad's knee swollen 5 times its proper size... we were returning from a stay in a hotel off the I-15, praying that by the time we got back to the house the power would indeed be restored after 48 hours+ black-out. both mom and dad were not in the best shape, and i just didn't know what we'd do if the house was still frozen over with no heat in sight. our house was the only one of a handful whose power was still off despite mountain repairs, and i have rarely prayed so hard for a miracle on that drive... it had been a stressful 3 weeks of SO MUCH SNOW and power outages and non-functioning roads and SO MUCH SICKNESS of every one of the visiting extended family (except me, miraculously). remember that, ya'all?

anyway. the miracle happened. the power was on. mom could rest and recover in warm peace. i vowed to pray for more miracles, big and small, this year. and by heaven! what a year it has been. miracle after miracle, and the prayer of gratitude to be said on thursday is going to be very very long... here's a quick list of the biggies:

toni moved to brazil to join me.
a quick 3 weeks later, toni and i decided to get married!
and just 6 weeks after that, toni and i got married!
i got into oxford (again).
toni got into oxford (again).
i got a full 3-year scholarship.
toni got a full 3-year scholarship.
we got to move back "home" to england, and found a lovely little flat all our own.
both sides of our families flew all the way here to celebrate with us in september.
that wedding seriously was miraculously wonderful.
toni and i got to go to ethiopia (already) and explore and learn.
we bake bread.
we get a bursting box of yummy seasonal veggies from the neighbouring farm every monday morning.
the oxford ward is wonderful and i have two perfect callings and some beautiful women in the relief society to be friends with.
there's really yummy chocolate in england.
we live across from a peaceful meadow with cows in it.
we have hot, running water and a lovely, clean kitchen with electricity.
we have grocery stores really close by that have everything we could need. (and more.)
libraries! seminars! lectures! professors!

ok i'll stop there. but really, what a year, no? what a life! it's too much. the too-much-ness is astounding. i had no idea the year would end up with so many miraculous things happening when we were driving up provo canyon that cold january night. i'm sad to be so far away from everyone on thursday, but i'm also so happy that this year i'll be celebrating thanksgiving with dear toni in our little flat as a little family. hurrah for that!

and hurrah for 2011! and happy thanksgiving to you all!

loves!
jooj.

week 6 it is!

sheesh am i bad at transitions these days. or maybe i always have been? (i remember nearly breaking out in tears at the cheesecake factory after mozambique - ha!) but it's been a rough patch the last 5 days getting re-acclimated to oxford from a mere toe-dip into addis. my bearings are all off. though the air does smell incredibly sweet and lovely here after all the urban exhaust in ethiopia...

but that was the whole point of coming back to oxford, so toni and i could end all the mad continent hopping and truly settle. (seems improbable with us, no?) but we DO feel so in love with our oxford home. on returning sunday night we realized we wanted to keep this flat for the full 3 years, it's just so perfect and we feel so happy in it's little walls. keep fingers crossed our landlord will let us sublet for 7 months or so while we're on fieldwork... eep!

otherwise, as thanksgiving draws near, and then Christmas after it, oh sigh! i realize how much i miss dear sundance. knowing i'll miss the winter season altogether :( no bob's Christmas party or warming up at the pellet stove or breakfasts at the grill... but most of all i'll miss lovely things like this...



and this...




hehehehe! can you believe how little david was back then! the cheeks! love.

anyway. onward on and upward. parties to go to in london, thanksgiving potlucks, loads of classic British Christmas dinners (and by dinner they do mean lunch), and of course my first gorgeous German Christmas to look forward to! (really really excited about that one :) it's going to be wonderful. just hug all the little ones close for me (and toni, too)!

beijos.
jooj.

i have no idea what term week this is anymore. oxford? wha?

toni and i have officially one more day in ethiopia, fitting in all last minute appointments we can. i'm starting at 8am with the head of the Gandhi Memorial Hospital, a maternity hospital built in the late 1940s by indian missionaries. (cutting for stone!!) i'll then pay a visit to the Empress Zewditu Hospital up the road... in both cases i'm keen to see if any records remain at all on-site from the early days of operation, though i'd be frankly shocked if there were, since nothing really exists anywhere else... the military government which ran ethiopia for 2 decades after a coup in the 1970s were pretty systematic in their destructive mission, leaving the whole country with scattered archives at best. this means several things...

1. i completely understand why there is virtually no medical history written about ethiopia (as compared to nearly every other african nation), it's a diligent mission of detective work to piece together what happened pre-1976....

2. in addition to working through some files about a british-funded hospital (thankfully) housed in london, i may have to spend a great deal of time combing through archives in OSLO. can you believe it? norway of all places? (mom will totes visit me then. hehe) but their lutheran mission branch ran a host of hospitals and clinics in the southern region of ethiopia, and i talked to the guy today who personally took all the boxes and boxes of files out of the country once the military revolution occurred... so there they are, safely stored up in oslo. (ran.dom.)

3. aside from that, it'll be tons of oral histories. over lunch today with an ethiopian friend we found out he was born in one of the hospitals i'm looking at, so hurrah! i can interview his mother! and all her friends! toni and i sat over tea with richard and rita pankhurst yesterday (if you don't know who richard pankhurst is, DO google him - it was an amazing privilege) where for 2 hours they just sat and blurted out random old doctors, nurses, or missionaries that they knew who were around at that time that i could talk to.

anyway. research aside. yesterday after hopping off the minibus to come home, a young mother with her infant on her lap were begging for money on the side of the street. it is admittedly everywhere in addis, and i am constantly aware that these early maternity wards i'm researching have had so little to do with the majority of ethiopian women. the truth is that they were and still are for the elite, and are a real sign of privilege beyond anything else. (ok so these hospitals are now state-run and mostly for lower middle class, with wealthy women going to private korean clinics. but still. even the state-run are by no means serving all.) it's a strange and frustrating position to be in, to see so blatantly these two worlds. here i am in limetree, this comfortable cafe with $2 wheatgrass shots (and wifi), surrounded by such a small segment of such a massive country. the privilege is staggering to say the least.

so sigh! there you have it. a hugely productive week. lots learned, but many more questions and roads to discover than anything else. it's truly its own world, ethiopia - it's been lovely to be an observer of it all for the last 10 days...

much love to you all.
jooj.

tenay'stelleny!

totally writing this from ethiopia, which is thrilling beyond words! i'm actually ducked into the lobby of a 4-star hotel near our (very kind) friend's home where we're staying, sitting next to 2 chinese guys playing games on their laptops. it's pretty par for the course of being in an african capital city that you perch yourself on poofy armchairs and buy a tea so you can use the rare internet connection. (or in the case of niamey, ali and i would duck into the 4 star hotels to feel the reprieve of air conditioning in 130 degree weather... aaaah....)

anyway! have been here in addis ababa for less than 48 hours, so of course all is very new, but it's been wonderful so far. it's a gorgeous highlands city, with clean streets, cool weather, and green green hills... i feel totally sucked in and can't wait to properly live here later on for fieldwork. toni and i are already scouting neighborhoods and amharic schools...

have also already had some success in research-scouting, and i can't help but feel like the modern-day equivalent of the egyptian pharaohs sending envoys to "punt" (their name for ethiopia) for myrrh, or the ptolemies scoping out the interior to buy elephants for their armies. this whole process of arriving at a place as a foreigner and begging people for trade - for me it's information and personal histories and archives, but i can't help but feel sucked into the ancientness of ethiopia. of course every african nation has centuries of rich histories of change and development and trade and war, but ethiopia is unique in how much of it has been recorded in forms that still exist today, so we can really sketch out a rough image of what it has looked like for 5 thousand years. the ancient aksum empire was converted to Christianity in 400 AD by Syrian traders (oh how history has changed, no?) - there are churches 1000 years old carved totally into rock-faces, stelae and standing stones 2000 years old...

but that process of begging for trade never ceases to amaze me in the way people open their arms with kindness and warm hospitality. immediately upon arrival we had a friend greet us at the airport, a lovely bed to stay on, and more friends to make sure we're fed and taxied around. (fyi my first dinner in ethiopia was at a tex-mex restaurant some of toni's friends took us to, so i ate fajitas and frozen yogurt as if i were a 12 year old again home in villa park. haha!)

also, sorry we didn't bring a camera this time round so you could get some sense of it all... i sort of hate taking pictures in a place where you already stick out like a big white sore thumb, but maybe everyone will just come and visit so we can show you around in person? they have tex-mex! :)

love to you all,
jooj.

week 3

seriously. downton abbey was so off the hook good this season. since neither toni or i have actually had a proper tv in years and years, we've mastered the art of watching the best of tv online (i.e. parks and recreation, QI, outnumbered, and bien sur, downton abbey). the 6th and last episode of this glorious bbc series just aired this last sunday, and AH! AH! all i have to say is i am in all seriousness so grateful that toni or matthew or elliott or lincoln or dad or mike or neal aren't conscripted into war. what an amazing blessing and luxury that is. sigh.*


i also made this cake last week, it was so delish and i was renewed in my gratitude to mom for lugging a massive jar of grandma's molasses over the pond for me - i really don't think it exists outside north america, and how on earth do all those non-north-americans survive without it this time of year? it boggles the mind, truly.


my old-oxford-oddity of the week involved donning my graduate gown and popping by the master of my college's fancy lodgings to sign the college register and gawk at the former signatures of university college alums, like stephen hawking, shelley, and yup - bill clinton. at least i could sign my declaration of enrollment in the college in english - it was in latin up until the late 60s. also i had to mention i came from "villa park high school and brigham young university," as "daughter of david and lauren p*", hehe! so funny to think villa park high is now listed in this massive old registry book with 8 centuries of latin entries before it. i think mr. barrett would be proud :)


the main event of the week though is preparing for ethiopia !!! toni and i fly off next wednesday, and i admit i'm terribly nervous. this trip will be huge detective work to see who is around addis that knows anything about the first maternity wards and midwifery practices in the country from 60+ years ago, and if there are any archives or records on those hospitals/practices anywhere to be found... eep! i have to fill 100,000 words with research, and this topic is quite literally a field of freshly driven snow it is that untouched... which is a great thing when you think about the whole point of a PhD, but a really scary thing when considering the practicalities of research! anyway. it'll be lots of running around the city, with lots of yummy ethiopian food scattered between. mmm.....! can't wait to report back once home in oxford.


i'm also skyping sadie on sunday and can't really wait :)

love you guys.
jooj.

*post-edit! i erred! 2 more episodes to come - hurrah!

her novels are also really brilliant, fyi:

so so good. (perfect companion to all that reading i'm doing, too.) especially at about 30 minutes when she says how europeans often view africans with this faux-jealousy of how they can live such a "simple life" and be happy and dance through it all. no- let's not romanticize poverty, and imagine that poorer women in africa wouldn't gladly have a washing machine and fully-stocked supermarket if they could have one. (and that there aren't africans who don't actually have washing machines and access to fully-stocked supermarkets, either.) anyway, it's a long vid, but well worth it.

the daily life of a dphil, or week 2

i really do spend the majority of my days reading, as any graduate (especially history graduate) student well knows. note this little screen-shot of a bit of my self-imposed reading list i've organized in excel (multiply this by about 5, so far! and it's only week 2!). i say self-imposed because an oxford dphil (phd) has no official teaching involved. i see my supervisor around once or twice a term, but it's all my own direction - you are left to basically figure the research out yourself. and i do know the material and what i need to read (i mean, i should by this point, right?)... but the more you read the more you need to read and so you just keep getting deeper and deeper in a pile of books and libraries.



good thing i do actually love this stuff, right? i mean look at those titles, so interesting, no?

and in other news, toni and i cycled up to blenheim palace last sunday after church. it's only 9 miles and is such a quiet respite from the busy-ness and noise of oxford's streets. it also reminds me so much of being a kid again. all those visits with the fam! it's true england.

toni's in berlin this weekend, and i'm heading to a lieder fest with a friend, some scones and tea with another, sprinkle in some more lectures and conversations and libraries, and then full evensong + formal hall to which i'll be wearing my "scholar's robes" at my college. still. i'd rather have toni home for the weekend :)

beijos, fam!,
jooj.

and in week 1,

lots of wonderful things, like how i got to pretend i was in brazil again yesterday evening (brazilian studies seminar! logico em portugues), saw melancholia and can't get wagner out of my head, delving deeper into history and african maternal health issues and scarily realizing that things colonial officers said in 1920 kenya are the.exact.same.thing. public health people say today, getting more and more acquainted with the lovely oxford ward, starting a brilliant new project for a new fistula organisation, and, AND the fact that toni and i are about 95% sure we'll be spending the first week of november in ethiopia (!!!). as in, 2 1/2 weeks from now. will tell more soon. i love my husband. and the wellcome trust.

and lastly, i'm back to my old self again - long hair was a fun experiment of "i'm too cheap to get a haircut," but it does feel good to be back to the way i looked for the first 24 years of my life. (but should i have gone shorter? i kinda think so. i saw emma watson on the high street yesterday - yup, hermione officially goes to oxford - and DANG was her hair cute!)




and p.s. of course the photo i take is from my computer in the rhodes house library. membs all those similar photos i used to take first go round at oxford? oh the déjà vu...

0 week*

*oxford's terms are numbered weeks, and since it infuses your mind as a student and this becomes your new time-frame-reality, let's adopt it here, k?

i. tonight i had my first formal hall in college where i wore the same vintage dress i wore 10 years ago to my junior year homecoming with josh wilbur. (hehe!) my wardrobe has seriously changed so little since i was 16 it's crazy.

ii. our professors roped toni and i into speaking at the induction of the new MSc African Studies group (since it was our own course back 4 years ago and they wanted former students to reassure new students that it's actually really lovely and you'll have a wonderful year - which is 100% true). we also proved to them that the course is not only academically but also personally rewarding... wink wink :)

iii. but this week is really the first semi-official term week at oxford, and the events keep flowing, as do the insanely interesting conversations that i loved so much my first go round here. i talked a great deal about something that toni and i are both very conscious of, this fear of getting so removed in research and in oxford and in the luxuries of living a "first world" life that you forget you are writing about real people in real situations - actual lived experiences, often very very challenging ones for that matter. we talked with marco, an anthropology student who came back to oxford after 18 months field work in addis ababa's slums and had complete culture shock: how do you write about these subjects in a place as blissfully unaware of anything beyond cozy tea-time as oxford? literally. it's the coziest place on the planet. so where do these tough subjects come in, and how strange to write about them in such an environment? or i talked with isabella, a south african student concerned about the ethical dilemma of interviews - of taking these life stories from people only to pump yourself up and get a fancy degree. just this constant awareness that these are not abstractions, but practical day-to-day issues we are talking about, and to always remember to make the work relevant. i thought about that constantly before - say i gave my masters thesis to the women at the hospital in niger to read. what would they possibly say about it? would they think of it as entirely alien (probably), despite supposedly being a piece of "thorough" research into their very lives and surroundings?

anyway. i think about the women i've met and worked with for the last years - seidé and halimé in flatbush, brooklyn... ana paula in beira, mozambique... dear suellen in sorocaba. (sigh). how does any of this trail back to them and their realities.... the thing is, these women's lives - as powerful and complex and dynamic as they are, are simply not considered the apparent "norm." they are so far from the euro-american middle class lifestyle that is drummed again and again on blogs and media and our general consciousness. but that is not the norm! that is only one (seriously small) subset of the world, despite being the one always talked about and represented and re-represented. but there is so much more - so many more lives that are just as valid, just as rich in their depth and purpose.

so there you have it. lots and lots, wish i could share it all (but then again nothing is ever as interesting retold, no? ha. will spare you then. :) till next week!