half/half/half

so i've been meaning to write something here, but i havent because i've been busy/irregularly inspired. which causes me to write half posts, and then leave them, and pick up something else a few weeks later. anyways, so i've decided to post a couple of half posts with maybe another half for a wrap up, to at least document my state of mind over the past few months (god has it already nearly been 5 months?). without further ado:

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6/10/07: "i lasted an entire month, that's not bad"

"sometimes in the morning, i am petrified and can't move,
awake, but cannot open my eyes
...
but you'll smile, you'll make it through,
you'll fake it, if you have to"
-Rilo Kiley, A Better Son/Daughter

so i don't usually start this blog with an epigraph, like i sometimes do with the photo blog, because it seems, well, really cheesy. but i guess this one seemed to really fit my current mood, so i figured why the hell not. it's not like anyone is gonna notice except me.

so it's been exactly a month since arriving in india, and the wall must have come at some point in the past 72 hours. i guess i probably don't have much profound to say except to report what i did, since i haven't had time to think much less read for myself in the past month.

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13/11/07: "what's eating me"

"sometimes in the morning, i am petrified and can't move,
awake, but cannot open my eyes
...
but you'll smile, you'll make it through,
you'll fake it, if you have to"
-Rilo Kiley, A Better Son/Daughter

so i was gonna use that epigraph for the beginning of a post about a month ago that i never got around to finishing, but then i never got around to finishing it, and anyways, it seems fitting again. which is depressing, but maybe i'll get to my own personal issues later on. right now i wanted to talk out (to myself, i suppose) some of the more philosophical issues i've been having with stuff as it's been going on here.

i guess i should start with the standard disclaimer i had for that piece about care, that this is more a criticism of the theoretical underpinnings of a project and not really about the execution, and certainly not about the beliefs and attitudes of those carrying it out. and i really want to add now that this isn't even so much a critique of the theoretical underpinnings of the project i'm working on, as much as me talking out via the internet the possible future problems with possible future projects, since most of the stuff i have the larger problems with still hasn't happened yet, and might not happen (and almost certainly won't happen in the forms i'm envisioning, since nothing ever does).

and a further caveat being that i'm academically severely out of shape, and my english is even beginning to suck.

and begin:

my first and biggest issue lately is with a possible feeding program that we're beginning. in the community we're working with (funny, even though i've forgotten most of what i've learned in the last year or two, i still instinctively cringe at the word "community". but i guess i might as well use it, since i can't remember clearly why i'm not supposed to), there are a number of elderly folks that for one reason or another completely lack any support. either they don't have kids around, or their kids don't support them, or their kids can't even support themselves. but generally, they're unable to work themselves, the don't receive outside help, and thus basically they don't eat. and thus basically they're slowly starving. so yeah, severe malnutrition in a vulnerable and generally necessarily dependent group. it seems like a no-brainer i guess, but for some reason the

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14/01/08: [cut back to the present]

so there i am. or was. fun little trip through my psyche, or whatever. now, in january, 4.5 months, nearly, since i arrived here to start my "job" im feeling a lot better about it. my hindi is at least passable, i'm finding a bit more agency/feeling a bit more empowered in my current role, and i may even start getting paid soon. basically a symbolic salary, but at least it will pay for my caffeine. and get me a work visa, which is a bit more secure than my current entry visa (which i'm not even supposed to have, making it especially fun to extend). the downside is i have to get back to the states to get that worked out, and before that, i need to get stuff worked out here. i'll be leaving my work for at least a month, assuming nothing goes even minorly wrong, and leaving hindi for the same period. which might be a bit scarier. because i'll come back and feel like i felt in early october, which was not a great place to be in, mentally.

anyways, i've been feeling guilty about my work lately. it used to be, especially in the beginning, work from sun up to almost sun up again. lately, ive put in my 8-10 hours a day, but in a spotty way. and much more of my work has been the administrative/managerial work that i just didn't have to do before. sorting out volunteer timetables/job descriptions, fighting tooth and nail for concessions at hospitals, making budgets and keeping track of our accounts, writing reports about what i've been doing. and yeah, i spend 3-4 hours every day working in the centre or the hospital or the slum, but it doesn't feel like enough. i feel like i have all this free time (like writing now on this bloody blog) and i'm not doing enough to expand our programs, or open them to more people. at least half my time sitting in the centre talking to people is taken up explaining to people that come in off the streets that no, we're not just going to take them to the hospital or the pharmacy right now, we're going to go about constructing our program in our own slow and methodical (or at least we tell ourselves) way.

so, here' s a checklist of things i want to do before i have to get the hell out of india in a month:

....... work out lesson plans for the month/month-and-a-half that i'll be gone for health education
....... get my february (and january, for that matter) cataract surgeries done, so that i can pick up march when i get back
....... get a bit of actual data/data sets going, so i can do some useful analysis while im away (as well as getting the gis data sets from shelter associates)
....... figure out a few points for easy government/free clinic medical access, to send people to in my absence

and stepping back, it looks like i'm incredibly bought into the idea of myself as indispensable. and i know that people are becoming too reliant on my/our agency and less on their own. or maybe they're not. i guess it really shouldn't be for me to say.

ugh, and now im getting ridiculously regressive in my thinking. not really helpful. but i've got excuses, at least. my dog is really sick and i get to give it little 2.5ml squirts in the mouth of egg whites and electrolytes every 30 minutes or so. and my computer's dying, meaning the power cord is now broken more often than not, therefore i may not accomplish any of the above tasks, ever. AND my visa is expiring in under a month and i still don't know if i'm even going to extend it or just head back to the states to get an entirely new one.

ok, so fuck coherence, im too fucking stressed. this post is officially over.