ktravula – a travelogue!

The Mayans Have It

I’ve been trying to find the right words to sum up this year. When I look back, there is an enormous bank of memories (some of them very personal) that I carry. There is that very first day of the year spent in the good merry company of my a friend, a Fulbright colleague, and my friend and fellow blogger Clarissa (and her husband). We had the most delicious cake, a great food, and a merry time into the night. Then there is that delightful trip to Chicago in July which changed my life in a remarkably delightful way.

It was this year when we protested against Mubarak using social media. I wrote this poem for him in January a few days before he was actually kicked out. Fun times. Little did I know that other tyrants would fall after him: Gaddafi, Osama, Laurent Gbagbo, and Kim Jong Il. Two of those dying tyrants were mentioned in the title of the poem. If I was a betting man, I could be rich by now. I also remember 2011 for The King’s Speech, one of my most favourite movies of all time.

This year, I met Ken Burns and Niel deGrasse Tyson – two brilliant writers opinion makers. I also visited Joplin in what will remain one of my year’s most enduring memory. I’ll also remember the year for losing my last surviving grandmother in January, then an aunt in March. Not very happy feelings about that. In 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, a surprise. I did not write as many posts this year as I did in previous years, deliberately. Academics have taken much of my attention, inevitably. Thank you for forgiving :). Now, if we listen to the Mayans, all the remaining negatives on the world’s plate point only to one conclusion: this will be our last New Year celebration. (I haven’t seen that movie 2012, but I’m very familiar with its apocalyptic premise).

So here we are: Iran on the way to nuclear armament, the US selling new arms to Saudi Arabia, a small but skilled group of homicidal religious maniacs are blowing people up in Nigeria with the hopes of setting up an islamic government, Syria is on a murderous rampage on its protesting citizens, Egypt is unstable, and the Isreali-Palestinian conflict is not any nearer to resolution than it was fifty years ago. If the Mayans are to be believed, whatever needs to happen will begin to happen when the new president of the United States takes office in November 2012. Ron Paul? That’s a scary thought. But by then, I will be as far away from this place as possible, most likely in the arms of someone I love. Is there a shuttle service out of this planet?

So, there it is, a sum of my thought for the dying year. My favourite posts in the year was The News Paradox (and perhaps Advances in Indigenous Language Technology). Cool visits: Lewis and Clark.

May the coming year bring a smile to your face.

What were your favourite memories, posts, news?

The Mayans Have It was published on December 31st, 2011, with the tags , , , , , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

The Third Winter

Browning tar, a rote of car zoom noises around my window. The sun sets in a distance, a lot earlier than before, to a now conditioned amazement. Afternoon and night share a neighbourly block on the street of a dying year. Tick, tock, the clock hand counts the moments again in memories of times gone before. At a different time but in a similar pose, time counted down. The geese quacked. The refrigerator hummed creaky tunes in the middle of night. Ice formed into layers of sweat balls around the glass, and everything else stayed still.

The world has not changed since then, or has it? Many months of movements follow each other in steps of ease, and texts, and work, and revolts. And here we are, another winter, another dark evening at four o’ clock. It is a short remove from those quiet times, just two years ago, in the sober remove of a rustic village, but here it is. A year winds down with the last paces of its easing rote, crank and all.

 

The Third Winter was published on December 18th, 2011, with the tags , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

New Year Resolutions

I felt I should speak about new year resolutions since everyone is doing the same. I don’t have any. I outgrew the whole process a long time ago. This doesn’t mean that I don’t make plans. It only means that I don’t wait until the end of a year/month to begin them. My resolutions come onto me like a whim and stay until I decide to change them again, and life goes on. Recently, I have been thinking of riding my car less and riding my bicycle more. This is one resolution that will be beautiful (not to mention cost effective) if we were not in one of the coldest time of the year. Still, as soon as it warms up, as it often does around here without warning, one might see me cycling with the wind around the campus. End of resolution. Oh, one more: (maybe) blog more, in spite of what school work looks like.

Now what do I expect of 2011? Even that, I’m not totally sure, but I assume that whatever it may be would include plenty traveling, new discoveries, more time with girlfriend, and friends, new pictures (and maybe a new camera), and a more productive time in school. It is funny when I ask myself whether I’m having a more productive time as an independent writer/blogger or as a graduate student; or whether my ability to develop myself by writing is made better by the peer review of the classroom walls than by the comments in a blogpost. Times just change so rapidly that it may well be that the education via this means of global interaction might come to become more challenging (if not more valuable, or more relevant), than the one we get from classroom. In any case, a combination of the two can only be even better. More importantly, I intend to have more fun, laugh more, and love more.

Clarissa gives voice to my thoughts when she advises that resolutions be made to delight the author. As far as resolutions go, I can do with none, or very few. But that won’t stop me from dipping into my bag of curiosities once in a while to look for new things to try. The other question left would be: would I go to Nigeria again this year? I hope so, but I most likely won’t, except I get something/someone to pay for my trips, and give me something really fun to do while I’m there. Summer in Edwardsville is really hot, and I don’t need a tan. Moreover, I’d really love to go and complete my tour of the country – and maybe visit Jos for a third time, and the Eastern and Southern parts for the very first time. But what do I know? Let’s see how the year turns out.

Happy new year to you all.

New Year Resolutions was published on January 3rd, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.