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June 11, 2008
If you whistle and hum at the same time...
...You can create overtones like Tuvan throat singers do, incidentally making a sound strangely like a radio tuning or a strong winter wind.
The blog presents me with a great place to put down my thoughts a couple months before I go, and as I stand today, I'm musing over the challenge of finding the middle-range expectation. I don't want to be the stereotypical naive white liberal/Quiet American, thinking they're coming in to enlighten everyone, while ignoring what the students realistically need and what I can realistically provide, which is English instruction and basic cultural fluency. The other benefits of intercultural interaction will come, but I'm being paid to for a job. Completely ignoring that job in favor of high-minded and impossible ideals would be a bad thing.
At the same time, though, I don't want to fall into a cynical resignation before I even begin. I hope to make authentic connections with people, and being hard-minded doesn't mean I can't be open for opportunities to help. Societal change is hard to notice and it takes a long time to build to a point where it actually is noticeable. The best that I can hope for is that my year in Cambodia, if it does have effects, will probably affect people in ways that I might little note nor long remember, but will add up in the long run.
During the elapsed chunk of my time on this sweet swinging sphere, I've figured a few things out about myself. I know that I'm comfortable both leading and following. I know that I enjoy the aquisition of random knowledge via Wikipedia far more than I should. I know that I'm a sucker for big eyes and bright smiles. Most importantly, though, I know that I'm given to grand gestures and big-hearted actions. As nice as that can be sometimes, it can drag after a while if one doesn't develop the requisite hard-heartedness necessary for urban life and its discontents. I had the good fortune to get to talk to my soon-to-be predecessor Andrew Turco at reunions a few weeks ago, and he talked about how draining the entire experience can be. He wasn't even aware of its effects until he took a vacation for a few days, and realized how much he needed it, how much relief he got out of it.
I've been rambling a bit here, and I'm still very much in the early stages of figuring out how I ought to orient myself to my impending experience. I think my watchword should probably be, "Striking a balance." The balance between playing it safe and swinging for the fences, the balance between the naive worldsaver and the snotty expat. The balance of expectations, the balance of preparedness (I don't want to over-plan to the point that I'm too busy to embrace strange opportunities that come my way.)
Bah, I'm getting fuzzy and abstract now. That's a good sign it's time to stop writing. On the plus side, I did try to put in a link.
Posted by flynn at June 11, 2008 5:21 PM
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Posted by: kunstlerin at June 26, 2008 6:54 PM