After I created this blog I decided to wait until I left before I posted anymore. But recent events (or lack of events) and thoughts have caused me to reconsider. The limbo I exist in now is an important part of the whole experience of whatever-it-is-I'm-about-to-do. And this will be good practice of the necessary communication restraints which are about to be imposed on me. And not just the obvious ones. Theoretically, anyone can read this-- and that includes everyone I'll be working with. Must remember that.

limbo-- from the Latin limbus, border or edge; Roman Catholic theologians chose this word to refer to the border region of hell which holds the souls of those who got caught on a technicality, e.g., unbaptized infants. Interestingly (at least to me; probably not to most of you), the original form in English was limbus, but the extant form is limbo, actually the word in the ablative case (denotes, in this case, location), which makes sense-- how often is the word used other than in the phrase 'in limbo'? (I do miss the ablative case; Greek doesn't have it.) Today its common meaning is 'an indeterminate place or state'; it can also shade into 'a place of neglect', though I'd like to think that the latter doesn't apply here.

in limbo ----------------- With less than two weeks left in Norman, I'm trying to be here as much as possible. Obviously I'm already accomplishing the physical sense of this. In a mental, emotional, and spiritual sense, however, I'd have to say that I'm flickering in and out. Of course. I'm about to go do the most exciting and outrageous thing I've ever attempted. Anyone would be distracted by that. But there's more to my in-between-ness and uncertainty than only that. After everything I've struggled with and hopefully through during the past few years, have I chosen the right path? (At this point, one of the ever persistent voices beeps in: what is right? - a question that is a faint echo of the constant and occasionally distressing conundrum 'what is real?') By doing this, am I putting myself and others at risk? I'm not seeking an argument or a fight. But I seem to get them sometimes, whether I will or nay. I'm not looking for everyone to agree with me-- how boring that would be!-- but some people are. Agreement with their ideas, their interpretation, their customs, their rules. I know. I've talked with them, observed them, written about them.

So I'm scared. The fear waxes and wanes-- it wanes the most as I read and study in preparation to move. And then I can't wait to go, can't wait to meet people and talk with them and share and listen and, for a time, to whatever degree possible, live the dream of immersing myself in that culture. One so vastly different from my own. I want to strive to lose prejudices and assumptions and preconceptions, all so that I can catch a glimpse, however brief, of another way.

So where's the fear? I'm excited, right? I'm eager to go, I'm looking forward to the whole experience of working through culture shock and stress. Where's the 'but'?

There's always a 'but'. Deny it though we may try, there's always a 'but'. Thankfully, wonderously, we occasionally struggle long enough and hard enough to overcome the 'but'.
I believe I'm headed that way. The worst has already passed.

My 'but', my fear, is that in the end I won't be allowed to do the above. That those I am with, those who were overjoyed to hear that our city has both a Chili's and an Applebee's, will prove such a hindrance that my mindset will always be shoved back into an American box, no matter how I hope and fight to get out.

On the one hand (men), it's easy to look at this and say that I shouldn't allow others to effect me so strongly. Easy to say. But (de) I've been on teams before, and I know how loners are preached against, how independence is discouraged, and how extreme the consequences for not conforming to the team ethos can be.

Gentlemen, place your bets. How long before the powers that be send her back?

A catchprase I found the other day-- we as a nation, as a culture, as an economy, are engaged in the 'Coca Colanization' of the world. And we shall not rest until McDonald's and Britney have penetrated even the deepest, darkest jungles and hoisted banners on the highest, coldest mountain peaks. I DON'T WANT THAT. And I pray with all my heart, soul, and strength that I do not further such a cause.

My hope is that there's another 'but', another de. I chose this route, seized this opportunity, in order to effect a change, slight though it may be, from the inside. And so these fears are also an indication that I'm headed to a place where that should be possible. insha-allah-- God willing. And when all is said and done, I will be following my dream of living in another culture, even if I have to forge my own way out to it.

An adventure. This is an adventure. Opposition only makes it more so.

Read now or forever hold your peace. I may have to remove some of this in the future.

There is still much to be done. But this is a start.

Last week, as I was collecting still more email addresses, it occurred to me that perhaps a slightly better way to communicate with people during the next two years would be through blogging. I dislike mass emails, but the impersonal aspect inherent in blogging somehow doesn't bother me. My efforts here are, of course, all in the hope that someone will deign to check back every so often to see what's been posted. A big hope, I realize. We shall see, shan't we?

So if you've wandered by and decided to stop for a moment, salutations. I apologize for any ads desecrating this page. I'll see about getting rid of them once I know that someone besides myself is reading this. So to myself, happy blogging, and to the rest of you, happy reading.