it's all too much

you know that beatles song on the yellow submarine album? the tone and feel of that song are so entirely à propos at so many points in my life. i love the line "show me that i'm everywhere and get me home for tea." :) brilliant paradox, in feeling absolutely everything at once, seeing objects and experiencing moments where you simply burst with feeling and yet you remain beautifully, peacefully, in the quotidien. (do we have that word in english? we should.) it's similar to one of my favorite (and oft-quoted if you get into conversation with me) lines of literature ever:

"one wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair, that’s a table, and yet at the same time, it’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy." (virginia woolf, "to the lighthouse")

my life in DC is coming together: pieces are falling into place and i feel like this last week was my first proper week of "living" here. it made me very happy, and i feel more grateful than ever to be where i am. driving across the key bridge today into georgetown, with the monuments to my right, the gorgeous fall trees spilling into the potomac to the left... i was quite awestruck at how beautiful it is here... how much is happening around me and how grateful i am to be in the midst of life... i want to make a list of things which have particularly struck me this week, things which make me happy, contented and overwhelmed with gratitude...

1. beautiful music filled with joy: arvo part, lavender diamond (and ali for introducing me), fleet foxes (and toni for also making this introduction)
2. my access to a car (mom and dad for making that possible through tireless efforts...), a bike, and a metro - i've never been so mobile
3. W;t (please do anything you can to watch this - i must dedicate a full post to it at some point when i'm more prepared, or even know how to process my feelings after watching it into words... and xarissa, who introduced me to it)
4. the UNFPA and Johns Hopkins for hiring me on this amazing fistula project
5. wordreference.com for helping me in countless ways while i've been translating this insanely large document into french for the project listed in #4
6. mr. yogato, also for hiring me - it's a source of lighthearted fun in days otherwise filled with research and translation work for other jobs... it helps me pay for utilities and rent and gets me to the lovely DC area of dupont circle nearly everyday
7. skype, for making distances feel less extreme
8. faith, for bringing perspective
9. oxford, for giving me so much last year, and for their consistent willingness to take me back
10. green-templeton college at oxford, who has generous doctoral studentships for students in the history of medicine which could help me get back fully funded
11. dr. dave anderson, my professor at oxford, for telling me this in an email a few days ago
12. the national gallery, for being so close - just knowing it's there across the river brings unmeasured comfort
13. natalie, for being the kindest and most helpful housemate on the planet - tip to anyone who is moving to DC: try to move in with natalie, she will do everything to help you out
14. The New World: Extended Edition (as if it could get more beautiful)
15. perspective
16. EngenderHealth for inviting me to come to new york next week to discuss my fistula work
17. dear friends like steph who live in manhattan and open their doors to me
18. memory
19. possibility
20. trader joe's banana, flattened

and everything
everything
everything

that make up days upon days... that make life at once so normal and approachable - so banal and ordinary, and simultaneously so precious and overwhelming that i'm forced to admit "it's all too much." my life really isn’t that glamorous, but i’m quite grateful for the simplicity. i like to feel peaceful and at home in the everyday, not try to escape.

my first love

molly sent me the most incredible package in the mail this week: a photo shoot of dhani harrison from "fashion rocks."

i hope when i return to oxford in 2 years he still lives nearby... is he not so completely dreamy? i admit i'm disappointed i didn't meet him last year, but can keep hope for our future... :)

(and do read the quote at the bottom of the photo on the left. amazing.)

where i live

after returning from the west coast, i promptly preceded to make something of my little living space in arlington, virginia. i thought i'd post some photos... mostly for mom, les and steph as they are probs the only ones who care :)... eh voila:

my house from the street, built in 1939. (so many trees right around! and still just 10 minutes from the city!)

hallway opening up into my (very small) room (which i love) (i like quaint, little spaces.. it's all you need, right?)


and my room, from one angle and then the other. the pics on the wall are my own which i had printed out - except the large eiffel tower canvas which i bought :) you know how i love the aesthetics of winter trees. and paris. so of course i snatched it up immediately.

i'm standing right at the end wall of my room trying to take the photos, which explains their awkward closeness... haha, the room is just a bit too small to get wide-sweeping-interior shots! it's perfect :)

also, i must say that i've really become aware of how important it is to feel at home in your space, to feel it is your own. last year i lived in college accommodation at oxford and could do nothing really to the hideous furniture, dingy carpet, and blank walls. it was never an inviting or comforting place to be - but at least i did have the whole city of oxford to spill out into :) now that i'm in DC and trying so hard to be settled here, i really felt it was critical to feel some part of myself in the physical environment of DC... i want to feel comfortable and make some semblance of a home for myself. i think in this sense it's then easier to not miss what i left... :)

i borrowed this photo and quote from friends (hope neither of them mind) (but they're both so beautiful in a particularly ordinary way)

i think that the basis of human happiness ought not to be what you hope will happen but what you, appraising your life, can be glad has happened.
- marilynne robinson.

(p.s. happy birthday to mimi and elliott tomorrow :) love you both dearly and glad we'll be family forever)

probably the last time i'll ever wear a dirndl

aw, shucks

hey thanks everyone for such kind comments on my post on fistula below! :) everyone is so kind in blogosphere. and it means a lot. so thank you - i didn't expect to elicit such a response! c'est gentil. :)

more fistula

i didn't have anymore luck on the job front today, but something even more exciting occurred...

you see, my dissertation at oxford was about obstetric fistula in niger. (click on the words to find out more if you don't know what it is, and forgive me if you've heard all this before) the point of my research was to critique NGO policy programs designed to eradicate and repair fistula in Africa, which i felt gave an undue emphasis to cultural practices and thus ignored physiological realities about the injury - in short, western organizations were perpetuating colonial medical rhetoric that "africans are sick because they have an inferior culture that we need to fix." instead of tackling biology of fistula, they attack cultural problems like early marriage which have only a slight correlation to the injury. the real problem is lack of emergency obstetric care for all women from age 15 to 50. i wanted to make this clear in my dissertation by providing the demographic information of over 400 fistula patients in medical files on fieldwork in niamey, niger.

so.... today. i met with a woman at USAID who happens to work on fistula. i told her about my dissertation and she nearly jumped out of her seat with excitement - she said this is exactly the research that is needed, that i MUST PUBLISH IMMEDIATELY, and that fistula programs are trying to move away from this early-marriage-narrative and look at the actual reality of fistula patients. however, large-scale demographic studies have simply not been conducted, and so the hard data isn't available. until now! until i copied down all those medical files into a handy excel-spreadsheet and gave the data to back up the biological truth about fistula, and in so doing actually help change fistula policy.

i sent her my dissertation immediately after the meeting, to which she replied that my work will be a "GREAT contribution to this field," and asked if she could forward it on to all her colleagues in the fistula world. i.e. all the policy makers i was aiming my dissertation at. i.e. my research was worth something and will actually be read and used by people who work on these issues.

i.e. AMAZING.

sorry if this is a self-indulgent post, but i figured i'd put up some success story from my time in DC after my downer post yesterday :) plus i am more and more ecstatic thinking about the implications of this... that things may actually happen because of research i did with the handy help of ali :)

hope everyone else out there had a beautiful day this certain september tuesday...

i know i'm impatient, but really.

i am learning the hard way that not everything in life happens on your timeline.

for example...

i first arrived in DC on august 3rd. i still don't have a job.

i was living out of a suitcase on kind friend's couches until just 2 days ago, september 20.

despite finally moving and "settling" into a home, we have no gas in the house until wednesday.

and we don't have internet until the 29th.

so i walked over a mile through (admittedly beautiful) suburb streets of arlington, virginia to a coffee house with free wi-fi so i can continue my daily never-ending routine of job searching/networking/selling my soul to email as i contact every single person in the DC area with connections to africa or health.

walk because i also still don't have a car - not because of any lack of effort on dad's part (thanks a million dad), but because car shipping trucks don't acknowledge that utah exists, and therefore stop there only once every 648 years.

anyone who knows me (or simply glances at previous blogposts) knows that mentally i am still in europe. i am trying to feel settled in DC, to really feel at home here without daydreaming of magdalen deer park or corippo. but everything seems to be against me! i mean c'mon! i was so happy that we'd finally be settled in a house, but it's not even fully functioning, so the excitement is quite muted at this point. i just want to call DC my home if it really will be my home.

oh DC - why don't you want me?

winter must be cold for those with no warm memories

but memories (especially recent ones) can also be devastating sometimes... at moments (like right now) i wish for nothing else than the ability to once more step a few feet to stroll through here...


or pass by all souls...


or sit and read/eat/do nothing here.

(yes i miss oxford.)

back to waitressing

i laughed when i got a waitressing job in provo after getting a BA, and now it seems a bit more tragically hilarious that i should become a waitress yet again after getting a masters. but hey - i take comfort in the fact that my incredibly intelligent and talented professor at oxford did the same thing when she arrived in DC looking for a job after serving in the peace corps. (the peace corps, by the way, is what everyone says is the number one ticket to fast employment.) (then again people say the same thing about a degree from oxford.)

so.

i missed out on a really great job while in switzerland (don't worry, it was still worth it and je ne regrette rien!), and have exhausted a lot of my possibilities. it's a tough tough world out there for finding jobs, and my optimism is waning. i still think i can find something, but it may take awhile longer yet, and i don't want to be waiting around beating my brains out. (i have no patience and doubt likes to attack in such liminal times...) so i will probably most definitely quite certainly begin applying for waitressing jobs next week. i actually don't mind the profession - it is quite fun and exciting (especially on the short term), and it will help fill my time in between fairtrade kenyan tea researching and job hunting.

sigh.