http://eklavya-adventure-camp.com/xusbbopl/1xki82x92jj
a
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Friday, February 8, 2019
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
FW:
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Tuesday, May 22, 2018
RE (4):
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Remember Table Mountain?
Isaiah, my roommate from SAS, sent me a link about the trail that we went up. If you may recall, it was called "India Venster" and was a lot more dangerous than we expected. Apparently there have been five deaths in the list six years.
They are putting measures forth to make it a little safer. Here's the article.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=124&art_id=vn20090428052610630C545037
They are putting measures forth to make it a little safer. Here's the article.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=124&art_id=vn20090428052610630C545037
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Harder
Being home is not easy. I love my family, I love my house, and I love my friends, but this is not easy. All I can think about is the ship, the countries, being able to walk 30 seconds to my farthest friend's cabin, traveling, all my new friends, and the world.
I haven't really seen any friends yet. I don't really know where to start. I feel like I need to see everyone at the same time to avoid playing a perceived game of favorites, but I know that's impossible so I end up not seeing anyone because I don't know who to see and in what order.
It's hard sitting here doing laundry and typing and unpacking and watching the memories fly onto my shelves. I look at my map of the world with 108 dots on it and a red line connecting them all.
My parents bought a dog since I was gone, from a shelter He's SO CUTE but has some temper issues. He's so shy, and when someone he seems someone he doesn't recognize, he barks and goes crazy. So I get home and start living my life at home and this drives Dodger, the dog, nuts. He senses a disturbance in the force. When he goes crazy it doesn't seem right because he is so adorable. I have given him food and a toy, and sometimes he smells me, but after he barks at me and my dad comes out and calms him down, he gets very bashful and sad, as if he doesn't know why he did the things he did. We got him from a shelter and are pouring lots of money into setting him straight. If he can't get used to me within the next few weeks, we're going to have to take him back to a shelter. Nobody wants that to happen, but it may be the only solution. I felt really bad typing that. The weirdest thing is being unwelcome by my own dog (though he had never met me until yesterday). The last thing I need right now is a dog restricting my access to my own house and being not-so-happily acknowledging my presence at home.
Better
I am a better person because of this experience. I feel I am a better artist: I got to play piano in a band almost every day and practice comedy every once in a while. I feel better about myself, who I am, and what I want to accomplish in this life. I feel that I can better understand domestic and international political issues, and that I can better educate younger people, peers, and elders on them. I feel I have a better understanding of world cultures and how to compare them and how to appreciate them. I think about my friends whose grandparents and parents, even, are from some of the places I've been, and I feel a better connection to them and their culture. And I BETTER see all of my friends again and I BETTER be traveling again.
Faster
Nothing has ever gone by faster that SAS in my life, but it only feels like that right now. During the voyage, I made every day last. I don't have a single regret about the entire experience (except maybe bringing more sheet music with me).
Here at home everything moves faster, especially communication. I haven't really used my cell phone in a few months and it feels so strange that I can contact anyone so fast whenever I want. Having Facebook back is a blessing and a curse, after having been weened off of it for so long. I strive to not let the fast-moving stressed-out way of life we've got going on here in the USA take me over.
Stronger
I've made bonds with people, both friends and strangers, that are stronger than any I have ever made. I have a much stronger sense of empathy for foreigners in our own country (both tourists and immigrants) having been met with the most gracious welcomes in the world and the most intense get-the-hell-out-of-my-country glares you can imagine. I have a stronger sense of responsibility to the world. I can't solve world hunger or world poverty overnight, but I can take small steps like making others aware and treating the world around me in a more accommodating way.
I am a much stronger person when faced with adversity. I have thrown myself into a country with one of the highest murder rates, found myself a taxi, and found a hotel to stay in for two nights. The problems that I was faced with on a daily basis before I saw and did the kinds of things in the world that I did seem trivial, worthless, and negligible.
I have a stronger connection to the world as a whole. It seems smaller, not bigger. It seems more accessible, not less. It seems familiar, not strange.
More than ever hour after
our work is never over.
My work is never over. More than ever before, I feel a direct responsibility to the world, to change things for good however I can. Through art or education or whatever. All I know is that my life just got a huge jump start, and more than ever, my work is never over.
Being home is not easy. I love my family, I love my house, and I love my friends, but this is not easy. All I can think about is the ship, the countries, being able to walk 30 seconds to my farthest friend's cabin, traveling, all my new friends, and the world.
I haven't really seen any friends yet. I don't really know where to start. I feel like I need to see everyone at the same time to avoid playing a perceived game of favorites, but I know that's impossible so I end up not seeing anyone because I don't know who to see and in what order.
It's hard sitting here doing laundry and typing and unpacking and watching the memories fly onto my shelves. I look at my map of the world with 108 dots on it and a red line connecting them all.
My parents bought a dog since I was gone, from a shelter He's SO CUTE but has some temper issues. He's so shy, and when someone he seems someone he doesn't recognize, he barks and goes crazy. So I get home and start living my life at home and this drives Dodger, the dog, nuts. He senses a disturbance in the force. When he goes crazy it doesn't seem right because he is so adorable. I have given him food and a toy, and sometimes he smells me, but after he barks at me and my dad comes out and calms him down, he gets very bashful and sad, as if he doesn't know why he did the things he did. We got him from a shelter and are pouring lots of money into setting him straight. If he can't get used to me within the next few weeks, we're going to have to take him back to a shelter. Nobody wants that to happen, but it may be the only solution. I felt really bad typing that. The weirdest thing is being unwelcome by my own dog (though he had never met me until yesterday). The last thing I need right now is a dog restricting my access to my own house and being not-so-happily acknowledging my presence at home.
Better
I am a better person because of this experience. I feel I am a better artist: I got to play piano in a band almost every day and practice comedy every once in a while. I feel better about myself, who I am, and what I want to accomplish in this life. I feel that I can better understand domestic and international political issues, and that I can better educate younger people, peers, and elders on them. I feel I have a better understanding of world cultures and how to compare them and how to appreciate them. I think about my friends whose grandparents and parents, even, are from some of the places I've been, and I feel a better connection to them and their culture. And I BETTER see all of my friends again and I BETTER be traveling again.
Faster
Nothing has ever gone by faster that SAS in my life, but it only feels like that right now. During the voyage, I made every day last. I don't have a single regret about the entire experience (except maybe bringing more sheet music with me).
Here at home everything moves faster, especially communication. I haven't really used my cell phone in a few months and it feels so strange that I can contact anyone so fast whenever I want. Having Facebook back is a blessing and a curse, after having been weened off of it for so long. I strive to not let the fast-moving stressed-out way of life we've got going on here in the USA take me over.
Stronger
I've made bonds with people, both friends and strangers, that are stronger than any I have ever made. I have a much stronger sense of empathy for foreigners in our own country (both tourists and immigrants) having been met with the most gracious welcomes in the world and the most intense get-the-hell-out-of-my-country glares you can imagine. I have a stronger sense of responsibility to the world. I can't solve world hunger or world poverty overnight, but I can take small steps like making others aware and treating the world around me in a more accommodating way.
I am a much stronger person when faced with adversity. I have thrown myself into a country with one of the highest murder rates, found myself a taxi, and found a hotel to stay in for two nights. The problems that I was faced with on a daily basis before I saw and did the kinds of things in the world that I did seem trivial, worthless, and negligible.
I have a stronger connection to the world as a whole. It seems smaller, not bigger. It seems more accessible, not less. It seems familiar, not strange.
More than ever hour after
our work is never over.
My work is never over. More than ever before, I feel a direct responsibility to the world, to change things for good however I can. Through art or education or whatever. All I know is that my life just got a huge jump start, and more than ever, my work is never over.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The Last Blog From The Ship
My luggage is packed and in some unknown corner of the ship ready to be whisked away when we arrive in Florida tomorrow. My friends and I are scrambling chaotically to trade pictures and videos. I still have half a bottle of ketchup to use up.
I am teetering on the edge of the most formative experience of my life.
Semester at Sea provided me with so much more than I could ever have imagined. They tell you: “Go around the world, 12 countries, 108 days, 700 college students!” That's only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things they don't tell you.
-They don't tell you that you get to interact with your professors on a much deeper level. You see them in the cafeteria, you see them in class, and you see them walking around with their kids, with whom you become friends (and have to buy a pizza when one of them miraculously gets one point higher than you on a marine biology final exam).
-They don't tell you that you get to play piano every day and record music and accompany singers and that you get opportunities to practice comedy and hone your own personal skills in anything you wish to improve upon.
-They don't tell you how much time you are going to spend alone, thinking about what you've seen and what you've done.
-They don't tell you that by the end you are going to have friends around the world that you are going to keep in touch with for the rest of your life.
-They don't tell you how much shipboard life, which is about half of the time, becomes your way of life, and how much each and every nook and cranny of the ship holds some meaning to you.
-They don't tell you that it will either shatter your plans for the rest of your life, or, in my case, reinforce them.
-They don't tell you that you'll be able to fit everything you need in a bag you can wear on your back.
-They don't tell you that while SAS pretends to provide you with an external voyage around the world, they actually give you the most personal experience for growth you'll ever have.
Packing was sad. It was one of those things that I didn't want to do, because it represented the reality that the voyage is over. No, the voyage is complete. When I step off the ship in Florida tomorrow, this voyage is complete. Everything that will happen has happened, and my immediate growth is finished.
The real challenge is applying what I've learned and how I've grown into my life at home, with my family and friends and my career. I've been deeply inspired to tell stories. If I've learned one thing, its that everyone in every country in the entire world has a story, and they are all unique, and they all deserve to be told. I've been deeply inspired to keep playing piano. Bob, the a/v tech guy and REALLY professional musician just handed me a CD of 9 fakebooks in PDF form. He told me I got some good stuff going on and I should never stop playing. I am also inspired to keep on exploring comedy. I had so many opportunities to try comedy in so many forms, and found that people do enjoy listening to me.
I've seen the best and the worst things our world has to offer. The best gives you faith in humanity, and the worst makes you wonder how people in a rural village in India can live in filth and still be happy. While others feel guilty for living the way we do, I feel very lucky to have the standard of living that I have. I don't feel it is necessary for me to give up something like hygiene or a really hot relaxing shower just because someone else doesn't have it. But every hot shower I take now I'll be thankful for it, and I hope to spread this sense of awareness to my friends and family upon my return.
And now, the big question: “How Am I Supposed to Treat Jonathan When He Gets Home?”
This is tricky stuff. You've changed while I've been gone, and I've changed while I've been gone. We are both going to be different people when I return, but we are both expecting the other to be the same old person. I don't expect any preferential treatment, and I don't expect you to be asking me questions all the time about my trip. Don't feel like I'm expecting you to be totally wide-eyed and astonished every time I see you and that I'm wanting you to even feign interest. It's okay. Please, feel free to ask me questions – I'm SO EXCITED to share the pictures and crazy stories, but don't feel like I will be “offended” or something if every other word out of your mouth isn't “was it just amazing?”
I'll definitely need some space when I get home. I am going to give myself a day or two do decompress, so if you call me I may not return your calls straight away. I've got pictures to post, I'll probably write more blogs, and I've got sleep to catch up on. But know that I love all of you and that you were not absent from my thoughts on this trip and just because I'm not talking to you right away when I get home doesn't mean I don't love you anymore.
But I'm still me. I'm going on about changing and changing and changing but I'm still me. I just have a much broader view of the word. I'm still going to Panda Express and Disney at least once a week. I'm still a Delt. I'm still working for the BJE playing guitar. I've just got more life experiences built upon my previous life as a non-world-traveler.
This will most likely be my last blog before I get home. I want to thank you all for reading and letting me share this experience with you as best I can. I'll be posting pictures when I get home, so there will be thousands more words on these pages.
This is Jonathan Katz of Ship Quips, saying goodbye from the M.V. Explorer.
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