It's been a couple months, and I thought that perhaps this whole thing shouldn't fall by the wayside.

That said, I don't know quite what to write.
Summer Seminar has been going pretty good. "The Natural History of the Eastern Sierra." It started on a broad general nature-philosophy plane, going through snyder, thoreau, jeffers, aristotle. Then on to western american discovery-history type things. Cadillac Desert, Beyond the 100th Meridian. Real adventuresome schtuff. And now we've been doing conservation biology field work down by the (deep springs) lake, doing mark/recapture studies with the Deep Springs black toad, a rare little bugger only found in the valley. Next week is geology trips up into the Sierras, which should be hot.

With Dairy, my lactating ladies have been doing quite all right. Lotsa lovin.

Being LC has been really good to me. an education.
Last year I often lacked confidence and gusto to push things through and assert my opinion. This year, with things like LC to back me up, I've been acting a little too confident perhaps. An overcompensation of sorts. I've sometimes found myself acting pompous. But maybe thats the residual uber-humility trying to break my confidence. I dunno. I really don't. I try hard to get readings from people.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to try for Cowboy. There's so much to do in the world.

And the mail I've been recieving this past month has been a pummeling of happiness.

Life is good. Really, really good.

It's the home stretch. I'm on page 2 of an 8-12 page paper discussing the pertinenceof the natural elements as metaphors in modern scandinavian epic literature. Due Friday. I took my physics inclass final today. Still have to slay the take home, by friday.

Then a week off as I hopefully hike around the White Mountains, though my ailing knee may detain me.

Looking forward to seeing those people I will have time to see, which isn't many.
Looking forward to Sweden.
Looking forward to June in Jersey.
Looking forward to the Summer term.
Looking forward to...

It's very odd to feel detatched from anything at Deep Springs, and to be looking so far ahead amidst such opportunity is truely frustrating. I'd like to say that I am passionate about my classes, but right now, as a result of having spent a massive amount of time on planning my summer, the summer feels like it should be arriving. Bring it on.

I was elected Labor Commissioner for the Summer. That is going to be exciting. It's quite a load of responsibility, but ultimately I feel confident in my relationship with labor and aspire to share it with the incoming first years. A delicate balance of seriousness and comradery is what I hope to achieve.

Less talk, more rock. Need to tend to the dairy cows, then be academic for a while. Perhaps this site will see less stagnation over my break....yea right.

I've had two thoughts treking through my mind these past few days, and here they are...

Since Sunday, Richard Goldstone, Jurist from South Africa, the first chief prosecuter of war crimes in an international court (yugoslavia, rwanda), the man who undid Aparthied and essentially the biggest swinging dick in human rights, has been visiting as a guest lecturer, and last night I took the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the Iraqi War.

Let me begin by saying that I would have never expected a man of his stature to be so outspoken in opposition of the war. While he wouldn't directly support Mandela's claim that Bush wasn't thinking straight (due to lack of tact), he did hint to the fact that he pretty much agreed. He openly criticized the Bush administration, but prided himself on being able to seperate the Bush administation from the American people, a distinction that he said most people in the world have trouble making.

So we got to talking about what he called "American arrogance" throughout the war in Iraq, as well as the refusal of the United States to recognize the international court. On the later note, he informed me that they have threatened almost all countries (including South Africa) to withdraw military alliance with them if they didn't sign the US documents... He said that the deadline for this is coming up either this or next month, and at this point the only 1.5 countries of any significance that have signed it are India and Israel.

So I asked him if there was any face-saving manuever that the US could pull to not force them to break of ties with the rest of the world, and he basically said no, they've really done themselves in this time.

I wonder about all this. That a country should not recognize the international court is awfully similar to a country not allowing UN weapons inspectors...By my calculation, after we're done with Iraq, we should be invading ourselves...

In my lifetime, unless something is done soon, I forsee much suffering before a vastly different world takes shape.

--

Second thought.
I've started reading Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench, and it's thrown a number of thoughts into the air, dispite the fact that I'm only on page 30 or so.

One of the main characters, and essentially the only character that's been of any importance so far, is a rigger, who travels the world in pursuit of excitment. Fair enough, a modern novel that praises carpe diem philosophy, nothing new. But it goes a bit deeper than that. To paraphrase, the rigger says "there was a point that I realized that to see the world I could either get a job like this or travel many years later as a tourist." Fair enough. He then goes on to praise the variety that traveling affords, speaking of this change as something essential for his sanity.

Now, I'd like to explore that change as something more. While Levi places change in the physical, in travel, I feel that it could just as well apply to more abstract changes. The way I see the world and view employment and work, I'd go mad if I were to do the same thing every day, or every year. I need progress, I need change. And through Levi, I see that only I can make that change. Only I can travel, and only I can innovate.

Perhaps I hold very high standards for myself, but I will consider myself a failure if I end up a 'desk job.' I have a fundamental need to bring about change. I don't want to design tuperware, or even toys. As much as I love engineering, ultimately I think that I'm headed for public policy. I've thought a lot about the state of the beaurocracy that surrounds rehabilitative and assistive technology, and perhaps thats were I'm headed.Changing the world is a tough task to swallow, but somewhere, somehow, I believe.

I guess I'm acting on a binge of inspiration provided by Justice Goldstone. I mean, for the past few days I've been hanging out with the guy who, as a judge from within, took down the apartied government. That's huge.

Commence the bursting of my bubble.......now.

A music article jokes about new years resolutions being long overdue...I coulda sworn it was still january.

I randomly read that its Ash Wednesday in somebodys AIM profile...Mentally, Ash Wednesday came at the end of senior year for me... and that makes me realize that I've almost been here a year. In some ways it seems so much shorter (in others, so much longer...high school? wasn't that 10 years ago?). . .

My hair falls into my eyes....and I realize that a year ago I had short hair, and it has since been in a pony tail-and-back. Sheeite.

time flies..

hey hey, it's only been a month and a half, keep your pants on, I've done worse...oh wait haha, that last post I did was never actually posted..I see it here... 12/27. Well It's going up now as well I suppose.

Anywho. Time has raced by these past few months. By some odd distortion of relativity, November was yesterday and June seems like 10 years ago.

Being on BH (Boarding House) duty (which means dishwashing) has been a real drain. The lack of weekends mash everything together to make me really wonder how time flies by. It's good hours though...after dinner when one would normally slack off anyway. Man do I miss weekends though..

And there ain't gonna be much of that until about august, cuz I'm on Dairy! Starting March 2nd, I'm gonna be up at 5:30 every day for 7 weeks, and then another 7 weeks of it during July. excitin'!

Milkin' Cows, Milkin' Cows...(to the tune of Jay-from-Jay-and-Silent-Bob's Schmokin' Weed, Schmokin' Weed...)

Olof has moved to Sweden, my parents are freebirds.

My summer plans are all sorts of screwed up. I'm waiting on a job that would throw a wrench in a whole lot of promises people think I made...haha.

Valentine's Day was...well...hmpf.

Time is a-flyin'. sheesh, that's all I can really think about right now.
The past term has been speckled with a hog slaughter, a handful of hikes, academics, mild self-governance scandals...oh I dunno.

There was this one hike...
We left at 5:30 in the morning under a full moon with clear skies...Cat Steven's Moonshadow came to mind. It was amazing hiking through what is normally alien terrain under sterile blueish white lighting. And the silence of the desert was ever-present.
We made it to the top of mount L (on in a chain along the lake..Mount L, Mount L, Mount Nunn...L.L. Nunn founded DS..it's cute)... just in time to witness a divine convergence as the moon set to a greenish purple backdrop in the west and the sun rose to a blood orange backdrop in the east. Standing atop a rock monolith doing disciplined yoga-ish moves, washing the skiles from east to west as the heavens transformed.

mmm.
all that, and I may be a step closer to knowing what I want to do with my life...haha.

This will be a hastily composed and loosely tied string of brainsplats--I'm waiting for Roo to come back so we can drive up to the sauna, and will end my post abruptly at that point. That said, here goes.

I'm frustrated by the fact that I haven't spend more the 4 consecutive days in any one place other than Deep Springs over the past 6 months. Hmpf. Every acquaintance I've ressurected has been shortlived as I jump around between NJ, VT, MA, NY, CT, CA, NV, woop-dee.

It's frustrating. I go places, meet (or as is often the case, return to) a person, but don't have any time to spend with them. It's been rather messy, and if there's anything I've learned from my stay-in-touch efforts, it's to spend a week with a person or two, and not try and meet 96 people in so many hours.

So I returned to DS without a sense of break. I guess this week coming up over New Years will be my first 'break' in six months, and I'm looking forward to it (family is currently at DS).

Well, there's a whole bunch to note about skiing Okemo and Mammouth, but the sauna is ready. Half pipes and Cornice drops and cliff jumps oh my!

until next time.

I was standing around in the kitchen, and read Max Gasners application essay to U. Chicago, the one that got published in the NY Times Magazine (or was it New Yorker? No matter). Apparently the head of admissions wrote a note on his admissions letter that his essay was the only one he had read that did justice to the world trade center. right. so. I heard the oven times go off and my mind was motivated to compose some poetic prose, at 2am, with a photography presentation yet to participate from this uninspired air. Perhaps this exercise will awaken my art spirit.

---

When you live in a house for 17 years, your whole life up to a point, you don't miss it. You don't miss it because it is present as little more than a set. Your nostalgia is for the parties and the playdates--the carpet was just sort of there. Kind of like a toothbrush or a pair of gym socks, your home escapes aesthetics and emotion; it just sort of is. Sort of.

But what came to me today was one of the arhythmic occurances of life in that house, the cameo that gave episodes new life.

It was something that would only happen when I was home sick, and it only happened when I was home sick on Tuesdays, or whatever day of the week our Portuguese cleaning ladies would come. And to complicate the setup even more, it only happened when both of my parents weren't home.

I would be lying in bed, newly awaken, having slept in due to my illness. The sun would be shining in under my blinds that didn't quite close all the way down. The room would be stale, I would be stale. If it weren't for the General Electric clock-radio that sat across the room, I wouldn't know it was 10 or 11 or 2, because from my perspective, light was constant and time was unchanging.

And I would hear a pling. Ever, ever so softly, I would hear a pling. From downstairs, a pling and a one second pause and another pling. And another one. Pling....Pling....Pling. I could have let it drive me insane--with it's unfaltering rhythm, it's penetrating tone--but I didn't. I liked it.

The cleaning ladies had cleaned the stove and jostled the dial that controled the automatic timer, and they had left, and anywhere from 59 to 1 minutes later, the pling started. They never noticed the pling, because they always left before it went off. That's why they never learned. It was really very innocent.

I would lie in bed and appreciate this pling for as much as an hour, completely sane. Then I would fall back asleep or my mother would come home or it would be summer and the air-conditioning would come on to momentarily drown out the pling.

It's quite remarkable that I should remember this so fondly, this scenario that couldn't have happened more than 3 or 4 times, but I do. Maybe it was because of how bored being sick made me.

It was a rather quaint little thing, that kitchen timer. It sat on the old KitchenAid stove downstairs. It wasn't a KitchenAid stove, it was merely the stove, but realizing that my parents have since replaced that stove, I dug up a detail from my subconcious that was never part of the stove's identity before. I think identity is only fixed under the threat of change.

Goodbye pling.

--
I'll be around 12/15-12/22

a poem from Composition class...

The Elephantous.

I labor over Document6.
The blackness of my keys,
Matches the blackness of the night.
There is not much ivory amidst

An ivory tower.
Where the only ivory
taunts from the virgin
realm of paper.

Everyone conquers mine
Yet I am better
than each and all.
None stand surely.

Yet last of all
stands I,
the stander.

Tied to all the rest.

Well it's been a month, so I guess I've gotta please the fans with somethin'.

Time here is flying. flying. I am already getting jumpy about having to leave so soon. The expereince out here is so precious and so privledged, and it's something that definately expires. I suppose it's a macrocosm of life. In the words of Camus: "In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist".

I've been sick the last few days--geographic isolation has the bittersweet condition of keeping illness out, except for when somebody brings something back. 17/25 members of the Student Body have it/ have had it. I ended up reading Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, and I'm halfway through What do you care what other people think?, the sequel. Both excellent reads.

I've been making mozzarella and yogurt and buttermilk and sour cream and butter left and right, and it's a lot of fun.

Two weeks ago it was time for us to take care of our responsibilities as Adopters of the 10 mile stretch of highway that goes through the valley. So 10 of us were given 1 mile stretch to walk up and down. It was a beautiful day. CalTrans gave us hard hats and orange reflector-wear to sport, with tons of safety reminders. I wore a pair of boxer briefs, shoes and a hard-hat. Sho'nuf.

So there I was, walking the desert highway with my trashbag. There were maybe 10 people who drove by during the hour or so it took me to do it, and when I would wave (friendlyness is a much bigger thing in the rural west), 75% of the time the cars would accelerate. haha. All in good fun.

Classes have been going great. I'm in the middle of leading the class discussions in Epic Literature, where we're reading Njal's Saga, an awesome Tolkien-meets-Hemingway 12th century Icelandic saga. Soo good.

I watched Say Anything the other night, and got down on the lack of affection out here. Brotherly love is great, but no substitute for the heart-wrenching deep emotions of love. Sometimes I play with Rasco, one of the more affectionate cats out here, just holding him in my arms. Most of all, I miss being held. hmm.

Breaking out of that spell of depression, I don't think I wrote about the pregnancy testing from the end of last term. Oh man. Pregnancy testing cows. Oh man. Sticking your hand up a cows bung while wearing a glove that goes up to your shoulder. Oh man. Quite the experience.

Break was spent on the East Coast, at Columbia, Boston College, Tufts, MIT, Boston U, Northeastern, and Yale. I had a lot of fun, but got back here feeling I hadn't been on break one bit. It was great seeing people, and for the most part it was just a question of picking up mid-sentance. And most conversations were left like that, too. I like that.

I'm starting to think about 'summer' break, which is going to be april 19th - july 4th. No offense to all my peeps in the states, but I'd like to be in Sweden for Valborg (Apr 31st) and Midsummer (June 20th), and hopefully get a job in Sweden for the month of May, and spend July maxin' around there.

I love you us kids, but I feel a need to get home to Sweden. So tell me your plans around the end of april and around june and such, so we can try and work some stuff out. How abouts a road trip to drop me off at the end of June? You know you wanna.

Oh, and I haven't cut my hair since I got here, and haven't shaved since break (as usual). We'll see what happens with that.

It's 4AM. I just got out of the dark room after having spent a half hour in there developing after having spent the better part of the night writing the first of two papers, the second of which I am about to start.

The two rolls I developed were both disaterous, and right now, with my photo presentation due in 6 hours, that was not what I needed. It turned out one of the rolls I had shot was color film. How that happened I have no clue, but whoever switched me if going to get a stern talking to. The result was that the roll basically didn't develop. @#%@#^. As if that wasn't enough, my other roll came out really crummy, with not enough fixing time. @#%#U@^##@%$(^@^T@##$.

I think there are very few things in the world less frustrating then creating art and then losing it. I am on such a downer right now. Actually-- I'm not there yet. I'm still in disbelief.

. . .[pregnant silence]. . .

I guess there isn't much I can do about this except learn to not wait till the last minute. Off to write my composition paper.

So much work this coming week.

My composition teacher spent the weekend translating a speech by Martin Heidegger from German because there doesn't exist a published translated version. That's hardcore.

Back to work.

OK, I so I've spent the past week being unhealthfully digital, webbing an intense amount of stuff for the new DS website. Today I played a four hour chess match against Arthur Bacon, my photo prof, in which I fell from definate victory to definate defeat in one move. It was a choice between two possible moves, and I chose the wrong one. I forgot how intense Chess was.

Sooo, I hereby invite anyone who wants to to mail me a postcard to start a chess-by-mail game. We've all read about them, but I just think it would be awesome. Sure, a match could last a year. But it would be a fun way of continueally staying in touch. And chess is an excellent way to sit back and think something out with excrutiating methodology. How bout it? anyone...

no time to talk, back to work...

This is rushed, because amoung other things, I have to read th Odyssey by Monday.

Eli is cool. Eli sends mail. Eli sends long mail. Don't you want to be cool?

My philosophy on outgoing stuff. I've sent two big packages to people, which have meant a lot of effort. They have gone to (suprise) those people who took time and sent me something cool or wrote me coolness.

Now, I'll probably send out some postcards made from photo's I've taken soon, but who is going to get the next package?

I guess I'm a jerk since I'm asking people to mail me first. Deal, I'm worked off my ass and not exactly partying... so I figure I can ask people that much.

I spent most of this week securing the fencing on the bull pen. They broke out three times, including today (saturday), which meant I had to go spent 2 and a half hours when I really needed to read. And I tore my overalls. I've also been weeding the garden as we prepare to till for the winter, and worked a bit on roofing one of our larger tool sheds.

Tomorrow I'm cooking lunch with Jeff, who is currently butcher, and we're making some mean sausage.

I wrote a really cool paper this week on the elements of oral tradition in Gilgamesh.

I made a speech about the distincitions between physical isolation and emotional isolation, and the dangers of the latter.

My photography is really coming along.

On friday, after the student body meeting, we had the most extreme (from here on, X) competition ever to be had.
--
The setting was a rope swing.
pivot: 27 ft
launch point: dorm roof (17 ft)
clearance: 1 ft


There was a loop for a foothold, the was a foot off the ground at the lowest point, meeting up with the roof so it was taught. (The rope had more unused slack)

And so the freestyle competion began, accompanied by Guns and Roses, Apetite for Destruction.

Dave pulls a superman, fully extended with only one hand and foot on the rope. Totally looked like he was going to fall off.

Phillupus goes for the invert, getting his legs up along the rope. awesome. Later imitated by Myer and Dave. Dave drops his had trying this, which he then manages to pick up.

Myer pulls off mad style, tweaking out the rope taught between his hand and foot (in loop) with his free foot.

Kelly gets the highest score for the night, a 9.9, with a tarzan transfer to another rope that hangs from the tree, used to climb it. Woa. Single most X move, but his other runs were pretty lame.

Etay does a "Psyco Elevator," jumping off the roof backwards, nearly losing his grip.

I toss myself into a whirlwind rotation with a 360-in. Tweak out some grabs.

Final showdown for Most X.
Dave vs. Phillipus vs. Myer.

Dave goes for the high five with Justin, who is sitting in the roof of the opposite wing of the dorm, but he's just short. (As a sidenote, dismounting onto the other roof was deemed automatic win, but nobody tried it.) Rest of ride is tainted with this failure.

Phillipus goes with no foot loop! Shear arm strength. Gets full sideways extention at the first apex, followed by amazing invert, and because his feet are free he goes into a inverted V. Looping around, he manages to get the rope as a thong, which he cartwheeled out of, landing on his feet on the grass. woa.

Myer's turn. He uses the footloop, and amidst a whole lot of tweaks and exentions, manages to pass the rope behind his back.

But Sillypus wins, crowned "most X."
---
After that I watched "Endless Summer II."

Crazy stuff.

Today I spent apast half hour looking at Nathans Portland, Oregon HS yearbook that just arrived. Man was out school lame. Man was our yearbook lame. Man he graduated with an attractive bunch of females. sigh.

I'm sitting here wearing my Carhartt overalls with my hair held up by my quintessential bandana, having spent the better part of the week walking around the desert tightening barbed wire fences, memorizing epic poems, and making self-portraits with my camera. Started work on redesigning the Deep Springs website (I'm on the Communications Committee, KomKom). Spent last night in a KomKom meeting, preceded by a DS Fire and Rescue meeting. The bureaucracy that is DS has begun to flourish...heh.

The photo class is un-fucking believable. Our professor (sounds so formal and authoritarian...yuk) is the bomb-diggity. Arthur Bacon (Arty B) studied under Ansel Adams, and is just so damn beatnik, the way the class is going, I wonder if it will springboard me out of civilization and into a lifetime of photographing the world's eccentricities. like woa.

Epic Literature is amazing as well. Gary Gossen, long term social science prof. / dean, is quite the knower. He's really bringing the cultural and performance-art aspects of the genre to the table, singing Irish folk songs with his guitar. Just so cool.

Writing Composition is making sense, and is cool, and is mandatory. It doesn't exactly light my groin on fire, but it's awesome none the less. I'm procrastinating an assignment for it right now.

There's a whole lot of stuff flying through the air here. Almost as much as flying through my mind. I've put a lot of thought into balancing DS life, family life, jersey life, and Sweden life. Quite the bulbous shitload of connections, none that I can imagine losing.

I need people's mailing addresses. If you don't want to post them, email them to me: johan [at] ugander [dot] com. right. I'm sorry if I haven't replied to some of you. I will in time.

Damn this is a frustrating conundrum. I love letters, but to a certain extent I want to throw myself into Deep Springs wholeheartedly and not daddle on the outside while I'm here. But nooooo...

The big question right now is if I go to Boston during October. December break is looking like home for a week, DS for a week [to help out on the ranch...milk the cows], ski mammoth for a week with joel/dave/eli/jay/whoever else is hardcore enough. I think that will work. If I don't get dairy boy, then I guess things might change. We'll see what labor position I get. But I think I want to go to Boston...there is love there...

That said, I love you all.

I've been home since sunday. Coming home is weird. Everyone says I look so good and so happy. Sounds great. I'm happy, but I also feel ... alienated? I don't know. I'm not going to play the regret game, even the thought of it is rediculous in light of the lunacy that I've been privledged to take part in at Deep Springs.

But I sure have missed a lot. It felt weird having jordan give me a speech on how I don't know Jay like he is now, and how people are changing, and how I missed erik soften up. (haha, softie). I hear jen complain about how much she misses erik and I get pains in my chest from missing all awesomeness that must have been had this summer.

This has been a very sobering experience...learning that you can't be everywhere at once. And perhaps you can't be friends with everyone at the same time. As much as I'd like too, I see danger in spreading to thin. I love my Deep Springs peeps already, but there is so much more that I share with my NJ peeps that goes deeper then even love.

Maybe it's that we found each other instead of being shown each other. I dunno.

Like I said, I don't want this to seem like I am in any way coming down on Deep Springs. It's awesome, beyond a lot of things. But I've been so caught up in it (and rightfully so) that I've missed a very big part of me slide away.

And I sit here, realizing I won't see erik until months down the line (april? gosh, i don't know). That's a long time to not see someone you've shot thousands of hours of breeze with.

I feel like I made amends with the people's who are here, and the one's I'm going to see. But seeing how tight things were over the summer, I wonder if my early departure cost me a place in some people's minds.

Lamentation is a dangerous thing. I'm going to go rob erik's bookshelf. heh heh heh.

[note: taken from an email I wrote to cameron, so it covers some already covered stuff.]

Class is in full swing, in the form of 'Individual and Community: Problems of Membership and Belonging'. Hobbes, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Rousseau so far. Stendahl, Marx n Engles, and Ellison to come. Whole lot a learning goin on. I got an A- on my Shakespeare paper (on Antony and Cleopatra, relating to Antony's tragic flaw, a consequence of his reluctance to devote himself to a private or public life, leaving himself exposed to be torn apart by passion and reason...right.) The teacher hasn't given any A's yet, so that said, things are going good.

Labor is also in full swing. I've been tarring and repairing roofs suspending by a harness swung over the roofs apex and attached to the winch of a truck on the other side. I've been weeding the potato field. I've been digging irrigation ditches. I've been slaughtering chickens. All sorts of crazy.

Last week, there was a fire in the Sequoia Forest on the other side of the Sierra Nevada's, and consequently the valley here was covered in smoke, which caused an orange/red full moon. We took a Student Body trip to the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes and went sliding down the Dunes (680ft high, and steep) on our naked bellies and backs and all combinations thereof. In an experience completely void of homoerotica (promise!), I had some experiences I can't say I will ever have again even if I try. Doing the backstroke down a sand dune, completely naked, under an orange full moon, will 20 someodd other naked companions casting neanderthal like shadows over the void of the sand, . . wow.

The pace of things here is feverish. The night before my birthday, the fire patrol caught me off guard and sprayed me with the fire engine, a tradition set aside for birthdays. The bastards cheated, and I was unable to enact my plan to wear everyone else's clothing on my bday so they would be wetting their own clothes. Oh well. The best plan yet was when someone ran out in the Alfalfa fields and lied down at night. Smart alek.

I'm in the process of updateing the Deep Springs website, to include the new calandar and the new email list, along with an editable PDF application for future generations of Deep Springers to use. Right now we're working on publicity and stuff, pulling media strings, trying to get into US News and World Report.

There's a cut out page from Cosmopolitan or something on the main Student Body bulletin board of a Calvin Klien underwear ad, with this model with long blond hair, with the caption "Johan's pre-DS modeling career", and the speech bubble "Jag taller Amerikaner." that a classmate of mine put up. Straight humor, I promise, and I can't help but feel like I'm hot shit when people do things like that. Not having girls around gets frustrating. The mildest pre-DS interest now appear in my mind like the finest Queen. Oh well, such is isolation.

I've been growing a beard, working on my shaggy cowboy air. It's starting to look not-so-scrappy, but I'm no erik "I grow a beard in 2 days" linsalata.

Aright, time to sleep some, it's 1:30 in the desert, do you know where your kids are? right. And as for the mail thing, well, hmm. I don't have that many friends. tear. I'm adding a week of amnesty. peace to my peeps.

note: my birthday is July 17th. My mailbox is empty. You have until August 1st before I disown every last one of you. So you should all do that voodoo that youdo so well and show the love. I've got some outgoing mail myself.

I've added a contact page in the menu on the right. bits, atoms, waves.

I passed out around 2pm and slept till 9:30. quaint. Well, I'm up now, so here's some updatin', In reverse chronology, associated by day.

This morning I got up at 4:45 to weed the potato patch, which we finished around 10:30. After that we made a big bowl of punch and then went swimming in the upper reservoir. I did most of the weeding in my underwear. It's weird how agreeable weeding (or any labor) can be in good company. Lunch, and then I passed out.

Yesterday was Friday, which means Student Body Meeting. It lasted from 8 to 1, during which we discussed the ethical nature of the masturbation station we have hidden away in a bathroom, decided on lecture topics for some of the visiting professors. We were all over the place, but it was really awesome, because we _totally_ decide everything. Like, none of the community members are allowed to be at the SB meetings, because for all we know we may discuss firing them. All of them. hehe. It's amazing to be witnessing the redefining of the community through our arrival. All the things that were Deep Springs a month ago have been thrown out, and we are establishing the rules from scratch. During the day I did orderly work, cleaning the main building.

My basic weekday schedule is
8 breakfast
9 seminar class
10:30 twenty minute break (grab a drink, go swimming)
12 class over
12:30 lunch
1:30 labor (grounds/orderly)
5 labor done
6 dinner
7 free

But there's been a whole lot of meetings and things at night since I got here. Orientation type stuff. How to survive rattlesnake bites, what black widow's look like (I found one yesterday when cleaning).

Skipping around a bit, Tuesday night we went up to 10,000 ft at 'cow camp'. Werd. It was so awesome up there, sleeping under the stars. I felt as if I was on the outer rim of the earth, it beneath me, the heavens before me. Seeing constellations on the horizon give space a new dimension...you don't really see that in NJ, not even in Sweden really (at my pad there, at least).

Oh, Thursday it rained! Rain! A bunch of us stopped what we were doing and went outside nad had a frisbee catch.

Wednesday the temperature hit 110. It's been around 93 most of time.

Right now I'm really burnt from weeding the potato patch for 5 hours in my boxers.

I'm going to go take a crack at Aristotle, I have a paper due monday. peace.

ps. erik - I wrote that poem a few days ago, before reading your comment. haha.

Westerly Winds.

Cloud drift across the heavenly highway above,
meeting their maker, their good-byes an amber glow.

Light slithers up illuminated valleys to the east
liberated from the highlands by the desert night.

And I sit, the individual,
disappearing into the earthly flats,
absorbed into the natural,
aching for companionship.

Where is she?
That she does not drift in, amidst the clouds,
that I do not forget her
these things only make my pain greater.
For she too is heavenly.

That she should emerge
seven weeks from this day,
a queen, praised high above the clouds,
by long desert nights,
that is my fear.

But where from the fear,
I know not. Passion is abound.

I fear not knowing what could have been
more than I fear what could be rejection.
For then I'll know.
On the horizon of eternity,
Not knowing is worst of all.

[written 7/8, the internet was down]
Holy Shit.

I can't begin to articulate the amazingness that is Deep Springs. Where else can you have 'labor partys', getting up at 4:30 in the morning and pulling weeds out in the potato patch while listening to 100% funk? brick....house....ohh.....yea.

Where else do you do campouts as one big happy family and run out of water on a hike, consequently sending half the student body into panic, only to have a water drinking contest be had upon return, where three persons end up puking water.

Where else do you have three hour seminar courses on Aristotle, with discussions I can't even begin to describe the complexity of? And the late night coffee/tea company in the boarding house, comparing applied marxism to the shortcomings of aristotlian democracy?

Where else does someone bet you that you can't finish the dishes in five minutes, and you take him up? Where else is the loser dunked headfirst in the rinse tub of the dishwashing line? And then jumped by a team of driers, polishing his face.

There's so much love here. It's incredible.

Where else does the entire student body race up to the upper resevoir and all go diving in, in a hollywood like cascade of nakedness?

It's not easy, but these past few days have been the most rewarding days of my life.

Who takes a midnight break from reading to have an improvisational jam followed by a singalong of everything from oasis to sublime?

And I can't even begin th describe the beauty, the sunrise, the sunsets, the stars.

And what student cooks prepare malaysian beef stew with all sorts of crazy culinary details far above me? Everyone does their work seriously, and the community is so awesome because of this.

Deep Springs is all about daring. Lots of love from cow camp.

It's 12:30, and I'm home before 4am for the first time this whole stay...amazing really. That would be why I haven't been composing digital tales as years past...too busy livin'. Well I'm sitting here finally, so here we go.

The trip was wonderfully bother-free. They didn't even X-ray my laptop when I entered the airport (as they did with every other bag) because I forgot it was on my back as I was laying all the bags up. ha. suckers...yet I'm the real sucker. Shit, don't think for a second that the men working the airport are doing any better a job than Helen Keller could be doing.

So I arrived, and landed on both feet standing, flowing straight into the likes of things. I called up the boys, and we had a midnight sauna with the most magnificent sun slice (as in not-rise-not-set) before us. Sipping beers, talking smack, taking it all in. It all felt so right. Around two we retired up to my chateau and the four remaining key playaz played poker for what it was worth...just with chips and whatnot. Playing with no wilds and two discards, I managed to get 4 Aces. Hot shit. I sank into bed around 4, with the sun fully up, at which point my brain's concept of local time could have been proven as the first true random number generator. ha.

The next few days blended together. Playing Grand Theft Auto (while drinking), saunaing (while drinking), or just plain drinking, no real parties where happening.

I got into a hell of an intersting conversation with a Swedish pal o mine. We were bouncing around the topic of sex, and some of my friends were dishing around compliments on their lays at the recent Hultsfred Festival they had all attended together in southern Sweden a week or two ago. Somehow condoms came up, and I got curious what sort of protection they were using during their wild adventures....and, well...none.

Apparently in Sweden it's a girls responsibility if she want's to have you use a condom, she brings it...that is my friends don't carry around condoms. Girls are expected to be on the pill...or to get an abortion without a question if things were to go wrong. (It's not even close to an ethical question here, abortions were presented to me as no deal at all..they're free and easy...ussually just given in the form of drugs.) My one friend's girlfriend got one just the other week. (She was on the pill..) Woops. As for STD's, well they're apparently not a problem. hmphf.

Moving on, there was a party saturday at two islands over, so we gathered ourselves together and headed over. Pretty weak party, (by Swedish measures) so we headed back to a KK and two friends that Fabbe (a friend of mine) has.

explanation: KK = Knull Kompis = Fuck Friend = FF. Someone you can call and frankly proposition for sex, with no relationship attached. Ussually the consequence of some drawn out party acquaintance.

So we headed over there, five of us. This would have been fine, and I would have probobly scored, if three of them hadn't been there the night before as well, and already had their picks. So me and Anders (the other left over) opted out of a 5 on 3 orgy and said good-bye. Well, eh, it could have worked, but Anders was tired, and not all the girls were willing, seeing as they had sort of matched up from the previous night. So close, yet so far.

More drinking, saunaing, soccer playing, (sober) fishing (I caught a 6.6 pound pike), moving watching, etc. It's been incredibly chill...not too much wild partying. Not enought chicas in my opinion. The problem is that my 3 of my 4 closest friends have been getting laid regularly the past two weeks, so they haven't felt the same desire I have. bastards.

Oh well, tomorrow holds a lot of promises. My last night in Sweden. Then it's off the the valley with me. Yee-haw.