It Will Get Hard Yeah... Life's Like a Jump Rope

In a world where scholars debate nationalism and the effects of globalization we are forced to figure out what is really important to individuals. Yes the community and the citizenship is important but it is the individual that makes up the citizenship. Many scholars believe that it is sovereignty, typified in the Westphalia System that people really care about. They care about self-governance. They want to make their own rules and laws. I don’t  buy into this theory though. If this were the case, why would people give up their sovereignty to joun supranational organizations and submit themselves to a separate governance and set of norms like the EU. I believe that the reality lies in the retention of social and cultural norms decided by whatever system the individual chooses to place themselves in.

            Many globalization theory scholars believed that there was an inherent danger in the application of globalization in that it would compromise cultural and idealist systems. The belief that an individual or culture could only submit itself to a single system of norms dominated globalization theory. This ideal that a group could not be both Islamic and modern at the same time was the foundation of globalization theory for so long. This idea that it identity must be “either or” for so long became challenged by the “both and” model. It is possible that we can adhere to two completely separate identities. There is an issue here. At some level you are forced to choose your identity. While one can identify themselves as something as simple as a student and a male, one finds it difficult to find a pride in being masculine and a feminist as well. This is not to say that it is impossible but there are times in which people are forced to choose between two conflicting identities. It would be difficult for the hunter to also claim an identity as an animal rights activist. In the same way that it would be difficult for one to consider themselves both a bachelorette and a married woman. At some level we are forced to embrace one identity fully while giving up a separate identity that we once loved. While being an American may be something we hold very dear, being a human being, a part of a global culture or humans, who share basic genetic structures, may call us to step out of our American culture an become something more… something connecting us with the world. I don’t believe that the forsaking or lessening of one identity is necessarily a decline in a culture, but rather that it can be an increase in self-definition. I also don’t pretend that this transition is easy. I am speaking to you who still remember the horrors of Pearl Harbor and find it difficult to support the current catastrophe in Japan. At some level we must all choose what identity is most important. I would honestly challenge you all to do this… please. I beg you, it’s so important in our lives. Dad, Mom, Bonnie, Caitlin, Alicia, Josh, Chad, my family and friends… write down 5 things that most identify you as a person… be it your gender, race, religion, location, anything.

Now cross out one of those things that you’d be most okay with giving up.

Cross out another….

Do it again… now you have 2 left over…

Cross out the one you would be okay with giving up.

What you are left with, hopefully your most base identity. The thing you would fight and die for. Be it family, faith, race, or anything else, this is what you are at your very core. I don’t pretend to be a modern Confucius. This is not even my exercise, this was taught to me by Dr. Gregory Miller, but I think it is so important to figure out who we really are and what it is we’re living for. I love you all and I hope that you could have learned as much as I have in the past month and more.

(Mis)Adventures

So Oklahoma decided to send it's love this past week. Snow in Istanbul!! How fun. This would have been the case except that Tuesday was just about the worst day for me. Full of much pain. For some reason, Turks have this insatiable love with using marble for outside walkways, stairs and the like. In a place that gets as much precipitation as I've heard about, this seems to me like one of the worst ideas in the world. Well anyway on my way to my early class Tuesday morning  in the rain, I was walking down a set of said marble hellspawn as a girl in front of me decided to abruptly root herself in the middle of the stairway to chat with a friend of hers. In order to avoid barreling her over I attempted to put on the breaks. One would think that rubber soles and marble would be a perfect match, but unfortunately these stairs weren't looking for a long-term relationship and down I went. I managed to avoid taking her out with me, though looking back it would have served her right, and only slid down about 3 or 4 stairs in the process. The worst part was the forearms... they're all good and healed now, but it definitely wasn't a fun experience. 

So I guess that Istanbul just had it out for me that day because I later decided to go out and do some shopping for making dinner that night and I had a similarly adverse experience.  You may use the post with the picture of my street as a reference for this next event. As you might notice, there's no a sidewalk on the street I live directly on. This means that all cars,vans, and mopeds parked on the side of the street must be walked around by making one's way into the street. Well I knew there was a car coming up the street, but was also well aware of the ample space of road open, not taken up by myself or the parked van I was walking around. I was apparently wrong in my optimistic assessment of this man's driving skills because seconds later I was clipped on the shoulder/arm area by this man's sideview mirror. So hard in fact that it caused the mirror to fold in quite a bit. So he stopped the van and made sure I was okay? Right? Actually he kept going and merely looked annoyed that I had gotten in his way and that he now had to readjust his mirror. After getting my groceries I retreated into my room and didn't leave for the rest of the night :)

So that was really the only big highlight of my week. The snow was really cool actually. It was nice to have. Quite cold for sure, coldest it's been since we've been here but I believe that will be the last of the cold weather for the season. Today was absolutely beautiful. It was sunny and warm. So much so that the rowing team, which I am now a part of, decided to take a run along the Bosphorus. The team has been fun. I have just been with them for about a week, but there's a lot of really cool guys and 3 gals in it. It was kind of crazy how it all happened as well. I went to a friend's house for some drinks one night last weekend and everyone was talking about what they were doing on campus, groups and clubs they were involved in. I made it known that I was curious about the rowing team. Little did I know that the only other exchange student who is on the team was at this very house, the same night I was. She also is one of only 3 girls on the team. So this 'coincidence' led me to really jump into this with both feet. I don't know that I'll be able to actually race or anything as I am new and inexperienced but the training has been fun so far and I hope to be out on the water soon.

Here is also a picture that was in a burger place by my house we stopped at on our way back home from going out this weekend. Thought it was worth sharing.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Looking Back

So its been a week since my last post... so what have I been up to you might ask yourself? The answer is rather simple. I'm currently juggling school, food and fun so I imagine that my life here is not too different than anyone in the states. I have been taking little trips around where I live, finding new and wonderful places for food, good sights and the like. I plan on taking a trip this coming weekend, hopefully to put some more pictures up on the blog for those of you who like far away foreign lands :)

Other than that it's been rather quiet around here. I have made a habit of having a weekly dinner, that a friend of mine and I have cooked. It's an experimental meal creation at best. So each week eight or nine people become our culinary guinea pigs for the night. We like to have a lot of soup and bread so that is always a staple. The past two times we have made meals, we have created a concoction consisting of cucumber, eggplant, olive oil and a good amount of salt put into a pan and cooked to a soft deliciousness. I would have to say that our last meal was quite a success. The main course was a bell pepper, bisected laterally, stuffed with seasoned ground beef and bulgur (a wheat rice) and then steamed in a pan. It was quite a hit and we were very satisfied that we weren't absolute failures in the kitchen! A sub-par bottle of wine, and many stories and laughter later, we had quite the successful night.

The week was mainly filled with reading for class, personal research, and trying to find a good place to visit this coming weekend. The weekend was very quiet, spent a while with friends just hanging out, but I've also learned how wonderful it has been just to have some personal time to myself, to study, relax or whatever. I have found that much of my free time has been spent alone. It has been quite refreshing, though I am posed with an interesting dilemma of where to go over my spring break and who to go with. I would love to go to Sharm el sheikh or Dahab in the Sinai, but again, I have no idea who I would go with, and though I'm sure I would have a blast on my own it'd be nice to share the experience with someone. Many people will be heading to Greece which would also be interesting except they are leaving very early in the week/weekend which I just can't do. So there is my plight, I know, how awful, being forced to find a place to go on vacation... haha I have been very blessed for sure.

My current plight however is far more important than spring break plans. This is the fact that my Turkish History class has turned into a lecture where the professor does nothing but review the articles we've been assigned in excruciating detail. I mean I can understand this, but it leaves me with the fact that, if I do as I have been, and going through the readings on my own in detail and being responsible... I'm forced to sit through a painfully boring dissection of each of the works during class... So, to go to class or to do the readings on my own, or to do both and further subject myself to my own academic masochism. Dunno maybe I'm just being too critical, but we're on week three and on only our third article of the class. It's possible that I have just gotten too used to the massive amounts of readings assigned by our dear beloved Dr. Hayes. Maybe I'll never know.

Anyway I have utilized my time in this class that I could have otherwise spent hanging on every self-praising word of my professor, to write this blog post. So I hope you have enjoyed being a part of my glorious distraction! Until next time.

Identity

So I have been doing reading these past few days for my courses, trying to stay caught up. First of all it's awesome that I don't have to buy any books here. All of the readings are in reading packets; photocopies of journals, books, and the like are given to us that is all of our reading for the semester. On top of this wonderful little system I have ended up spending only around $80 on my books for the entire semester... man that's so much better than my first semester in engineering where i spent somewhere around $500. Definitely a step up.

Another interesting fact is that I am taking a course from an instructor who is 90 years old giver or take 3 years. I know this not from a biography but by the fact that the Turkish government has made it mandatory for state-hired academics to retire at the age of 67 from state universities. This knowledge combined with the fact that she informed the class that she loves teaching and writing so much that she decided to stay in the biz even after that and 20 years later she is still loving it. The prune-like skin, old lady glasses and the fact that we have to yell at her slowly for her to understand us also gives it away if one was to not have made that initial connection.

So I'm doing my readings about globalization and transnational identities and it really got me thinking. One scholar has pointed out that national politics, in light of globalization and international NGOs and the like, has been losing what used to be the core of its power - it's sovereignty. This is very true. Turkey for example has given up so much in order to become part of the EU. While it may be true that it is a government backed initiative in the first place, I have talked to many Turks who are incredibly open to the idea and even strongly in favor...yet this induction into this international body most certainly means the loss of certain aspects of Turkish sovereignty. For example... there is a food here (most delicious if I do say so myself) called çiğköfte.  This is raw meatballs. It's traditionally made with raw meat, a wheat rice, onion, tomato, and served to wrap up in lettuce with a squeeze of lemon on top. It's amazing... and it's not real raw meat. Not anymore at least, not that I have eaten From everything I've heard from the Turks around me about the history of the food, the Ministry of Health has banned the use of raw meat and now they use lintels and other meat substitutes. What I have been told, and this has not been verified yet (having trouble finding the English translations for sources), is that due to their desire to be in the EU this was one of the regulations they were required to adopt. So... while they are able to maintain their cultural identity through a slight alteration on a classic food, they are actively giving up a bit of sovereignty in order to become a part of the EU. So my question is, was it ever REALLY about sovereignty? I mean I understand that's what Westphalia was all about but was it just that "sovereignty" was the word we knew and used? What if it's always been about identity? That people are willing to give up certain freedoms/self-governance as long as they are able to retain enough of their cultural, ethnic, linguistic, spiritual etc. identity so as to feel a sense of purpose.

I believe to some extent it is... which raises another question. How do we chose our given identities? Why is it that some people I know, who love their families, friends and home so much, choose to go overseas and live in a community that initially didn't share any points of their identity (or so it seemed). In this same train of thought, others wish to stay rooted in the places they have begun to know so well. They identify with their surroundings and environment. Not that either of these is wrong or better than the other, but it does cause me to question how we develop those identities. The conclusion that I have been able to come to is that it's about the locale of the identity creation. I believe there are two types of people, those who are defined solely (or at least primarily) through internal operators. My example is that I am a Packers fan. I have never set foot in Wisconsin and have only physically been able to go to ONE game. Yet I have stuck with them and anyone who knows me well on a personal level could tell you they are the team I love. 2 things stick out to me here. This is something I have defined for myself... regardless of my geographical location or the fact that I only knew of two other people (Grant and Dani B... shout out) who supported them in my home town of Owasso, OK. The second part of this is that it is such a part of my life that people who get to know me will most inevitably find out about it. I will come back to this later.

The others are those who define themselves by what they are around, where they're from and who is around them. The example I would give here are the generations that are born, live and die in the same communities. Anyone who has seen The Town can understand this example. In fact, anyone from Owasso can understand this. The small town mentality is usually what this is seen to reflect. These are the people that seemingly, if removed from their homes would be utterly lost. 

Both of these people groups experience great joy and wonderful lives, don't get me wrong. I am simply trying to wrap my mind around what drives people. After all this is really what International Relations and life in general is all about. What drives states, people groups, NGOs to do what they do? How do they establish their identities and why does that cause them to do what they do. There is something else there that is not only striking to me but also seems along the lines of dangerous.

Recently talking with someone I was given the story that an individual they knew very well chose to outwardly identify themselves in the grouping with athletes. Now from this conversation I gathered that this person was marginally connected with sports in their lives. Yet, despite this marginal participation, they decided to identify athletes as a group and ascribe themselves to that camp. It is my observation that this happens quite often. In my own life I can see my identifiers, some of which I have what one could barely call marginal participation. For instance I could call myself a humanitarian yet, what portion of my life have I devoted to humanitarian efforts? I have a friend who has a heart for Africa. She is planning a trip this summer to return to a place she has been twice before. Those close to her would understand if she said "I love Africa, it's a place where my heart is." They would believe this and know it to be true because they have seen it in her life. How many times though, do people claim an identity to which they are only marginally participated in? One in which, even people who are close to them rarely see the active fruits of. This isn't to say I can't say I have a heart for Africa as well though I haven't been there physically but you better believe that my prayer life, donations, social activist groups, etc had better be involved in it for me to claim that. What I have seen though is people claiming, sports teams, religious affiliation, social issues as identities they adhere to, yet there is a vast disproportion to the level they claim the identity and the level at which they are active in it. 

This is not ultimately wrong. Those of you who are like me and hockey fans, or whatever, but you don't go out of your way to watch it can understand this. There is nothing inherently wrong with these identifiers... except for what I believe they allow. At what point does this begin to bleed into your spiritual life. At what point does being a marginal athlete (not to be confused with being mediocre), yet still claiming it as an identity allow you to do the same in your faith. I think that's what America has greatly become today. A group of people who prescribe to Christianity or whatever the case may be and yet their lives don't show it. I would love to have an outsider ask my friends, the people I knew well and even not so well and describe the things about me that they though I would identify with... We tell people EVERYTHING! About the latest great movie we watched, book we read, travel we took. Because they're important to us. We tell people about what's important. Then it makes me ask myself, how many of my friends, your friends would consider you a follower of God. Does your life show it? Are you different enough from everyone else for them to tell? I am just realizing that this wasn't the case in my life in all areas and it's something that Turkey is teaching me how to do. I don't ever have to say I'm different; if I'm living it, people will notice. The hard truth is, if they don't notice it... I'm not living it.

Sorry for the length of this one. Just a lot on my heart right now. I'm tired of excuses. In my own life first and foremost and in the rest of the world as well. I tire of people who claim marginal identities because they are afraid to back down and say that they may love being lazy or watching Dexter, House and Burn Notice to spend time in the word, or be diligent in their search for grad schools, or do well in school... In the end, we do what is important to us. All people have to do is look at our lives, document our days and they could tell whats important to us the most. Why aren't we honest with ourselves then?

Also I’d like to extend a hand of thanks to my friend and academic colleague Brad Youngblood who is currently doing a time of study abroad in France. He’s got some great insight to his time over there and you should check it out. The address is http://bradyoungblood.wordpress.com/