taken care of

Okay so there is this wonderful thing that the universe does, namely that it really does take care of you, provides what it is you need when you need it, and does it all in ways you'd never expect. 

Without sounding too hippy-dippy here, I experienced this in the most wonderful of ways yesterday. And it had to do with opening up and being vulnerable with myself about who and where I am, and then resolving to be happy, to be okay, to be strong in the face of it all anyway. So then I proceeded into my sun shiney day and made this friend 

whom I named 'Trubee' after Trubarjeva ulica, the street I found him on, and I pedalled back through the city and as I rode the little bicycle bell would twinkle on every bump on the flat bike lane and generally lifted my spirits like times a million to hear that, plus the view going home was wide afternoon streets and mountains in the background. I felt good. And I did some proposal writing for a project I will confirm soon, and I started my readings like a good kid and it was good. And I thought, exactly, see, your whole heart is right here. 

And then I was bombarded, quite honestly, with love. At the end of reading one email from a dearest heart, another rolls in, all excited life and cheer, and that sequence of events (also content of) hit me in that feeling place we all get hit in occasionally. And I sat on the edge of my sofa-bed, laughing and crying, overwhelmed by how wonderful it felt, how better timed it could not have been. This, oh this. 

So I will leave that at that to say I am very well now. 

But what a hectic week it's been, an overload of everything in the goodest of ways. 

Monday was orientation at FDV, fairly basically laid out, twas good but not super illuminating on anything in particular. Except of course to introduce me to a nice Austrian girl and we chatted for a while, to nod hello to my Spanish amigos from dinner last week, everyone sticking slightly closer to home for now. And then I went to FSD, the faculty of social work, to meet with the Erasmus coordinator there, Borut. This is where I a little got set on fire. He spoke about the smallness of the faculty, the criticality and advocacy work of the profs, how much he loves students with ideas. So I said "well, there's this play I want to put on..." and he said we can make it work, can try at least. And he made me feel so welcome and included and my mind was racing when I left. To the doctors for this ear infection, and I found again how nice everyone is when you ask for help and maybe we do just need to be a society that asks each other for help more often...

My amazing landlord Marjan helped me set up an Internet contract and even drove me into the city. Big ups to how awesome he's been. 

Tuesday was class test-out day. First was social capital, where there was a girl from Canada(Laurier!!), next 'international economic relations'....which I walked out/ran away from on break because :| economics, which I didn't have enough background in to understand fully. Had some hardcore zone out moments. Then I wandered from building to building only to be told wrong building in order to register myself as living here. Came home exhausted. 

Wednesday was an early morning class on spatial sociology (?!?!????????), shame because the professor is so hilarious I that 'I honestly don't give a f*ck' way about him. Went to a first introductory meeting on some social work classes--a pretty dismissive professor, but it felt SO GOOD to talk about gender and race and inequality on like real human terms in an academic setting. Like there is some kind of not-just-opinion validation of the angry feels out there. Good good good. Got to the right building but didn't have the right papers (merr), although I filled out a form that called me an alien. 

Now, okay. I've always had this like behind-the-eyes discomfort with 'illegal alien', etc, because it entirely dehumanizes people who are, well, people...but it took until the moment it meant me to really hit home. And this was in a strictly bureaucratic manner, not in constant debate or widespread xenophobic attitudes around immigrants. It made me feel unwelcome and fucking weird, not attached to my most basic identity as a human...and this was fine print on a form. How the hell must it feel to be labelled and known and talked about as an 'alien', an 'illegal alien', all the damn time? Which is more than reality for way too many people. And this may seem like some kind of Kelly don't get worked up over words kind of thing...but...fuck these words. This is more than just some kind of rhetorical issue. Like, yeah, maybe changing the term 'alien' into something like 'applicant' won't solve the world's migrant issues, but you can at least return a bit of dignity. Fuck this eh? Like are we living seriously in a day and age where you can call someone an ALIEN, can label someone  ILLEGAL, and be okay with that? 

And I don't mean to change this for like my comfort in bureaucratic bullshit, because for me it was temporary and not forever. Like that's whatever, really. It's an inciting incident, something that got me really considering all this. I am angry about it because of the lives that have to live with being labelled so grossly. 'Alien'. Like really? Fuck. 

*ahem* 

So I returned to class, on politics of globalization (perhaps appropriate), but the prof wasn't there, so I won't be able to get fired up on institution(al injustice and structural violence) till next week. That class is full, but about 3/4 are Erasmus/exchange kiddies and 1/4 exasperated Slovenian students who have to roll their eyes at the temporary exhibits of party animal-ness of most Erasmus cats. It will be interesting to experience lectures and seminars like that.

A word--for FDV, classes are 4 hours-ish, in that 2 are lectures and 2 are seminars, usually. Everything seems like it's going to be less hands-on activity/participation than UBC, because it's like a 1/3 essay and 2/3exam, usually. 

Thursday I went to a meeting for 'current issues in the international community', a class you had to apply to get into on account of it being INTENSIVE. This looks like it will be UBC third year standard of work. International law, humanitarian aid, regionalism and the like. Only 40 kids, half-half (Erasmus/Slovenian), so I expect some like really illuminating debates and discussions there. HECK YES. 

Speaking of debates, my class later that day, 'North South Relations'...whooooooaaaaaa everyone better just sit down. It's technically on/about "development studies", which even now has my veins running hot. The 'developing world', country case studies, 'development economics'...heeee so excited for it. The professor looks anything but a development prof--she looks a little bit dull, a little bit monotone, but she has this light in her eyes when talking about this that I love. I'm on tenterhooks because of how critical Thursday conversations have made me (hat tip Simon and Maneo for that), plus having travelled to this 'developing world', quite intimately. When asked if anyone has travelled to 'the developing world', the response was small....one British guy said Uganda, some Slovenians said like Montenegro, Kosovo, "does Croatia count?"(which on another note, Southern Europe I've got my eye on as travel destinations for this year, get a feel for the divide here)...that was about it. Maybe this is like some shiny privilege coming through (eww gross it probably is), but I guess I thought that Europeans were a little more like in-depth travelled than that survey showed. Hmmm. But yeah. So I'm going to keep my eyes/ears wide open and challenge what arrives as like unjustly drenched in ignorance or inequality. And hopefully be challenged as well, called out and the like. 

     We talked about the MDGs, which reminded me like brutally of this morning in South Africa when Maneo and I read the report on the MDGs so far, and read the like proposal for the next goals, and how gross gross gross the wording was, to "involve people, including women, the poor, youth, disabled, indigenous, the elderly,"etcetcetc along that line and we both just couldn't even.  Ahhhhh yeah. Yup. 

Andbutso we ended class with a fascinating debate from the BBC called "Why Poverty?" (hosted in Johannesburg, actually) I suggest you check it out, even is just for the sheer hilarity of it. I was chuckling and snapping through it all. Tony Blair got scolded properly. It was wonderful. Though I didn't get to watch the whole thing, so I shall do that sometime. And I mean  hilarious in the sense that when the going gets debate-y, I can't help but feel like way invested in it, and just by default on the side of like local-interest issues and the underdog....which is never the government/the side of governance. Sorry not sorry for that. But anyways, not to get too polticky here...yah. It shall be interesting. 

So it is definitely safe to say that it has been one heck of a week, and all over the map, and everywhere. Definite highs being the kindness of everyone, and their willingness to speak English to me, and a few of my classes, and having this excited-almost-now feels of starting things, and beginning to recognize some Erasmus faces. It is going to only go up from here as we all stretch ourselves into the next four months together. Lows being the small frustrations of wrong directions and wrong buildings and learning to be patient in lines and waiting rooms because you can't always fuck the system. And then having to say goodbye from so far to our dog, Frosty, who was put down on Thursday, what was a "beautiful autumn day", from my mom. He was 12, suffering from some kind of bowel cancer, we think. Been around for more than half my life. 

So I choose to remember him at our old house, chasing crows, running tirelessly around the pool, becoming a brown dog when we went camping, as a puppy and the most cuddly, his funny habits of barking at the vacuum cleaner and how he never mastered the art of 'fetch'. How amazing a dog he was for us. 

    And I say all this now but I'm saying it from a distance. It won't really sink in until I return home and he isn't there, raising his head from his doggy cushion, knowing where he would sleep, where he would be. He was a fixture of life, truly. And I'm sorry he had to suffer at all towards the end, but at least the pain is over now. 

And I guess that is how life goes. As in...it goes on. It doesn't stop for anything, and death is just as much a part of that. I've sometimes struggled with remembering how life continues on all fronts for everyone at all times, regardless of where I am. Like camp, for example. How after those two weeks you return to the 'real world' and oh look, this happened and they went somewhere and this person said that and etcetcetc. 

   But this last week (and I realize this now) has really hit that home. Whether it be hearing from friends back home, or knowing my parents had to put my dog down, or seeing updates from Dinesh in Nepal, or pictures on Instagram from South Africa...I am not alone in this living thing, experiencing and feeling and all that. Not that I ever was, but I mean...like I'm not alone in this. I do not have to be alone and I am not. You are all here with me, just as I am with you, and together we can experience and feel and sing and cry and laugh at ourselves and the incredulity of this. 

Distance really is mental. 

And isn't that a wonderful uphill battle to be wrestling? 

I think so. 

You let me know. 

from my streets to yours

-k