On Obamacare and the Shutdown

When I'm home in the US - as I just was - one question constantly comes up:  Do you think you'll ever move back?

The truth is, I would love to at some point move back. I don't think I'm at a place career-wise where that makes sense right now, but there's also one, very practical reason that right now, I'm fighting like hell to find a way to stay in Europe: health care.

When I left for the UK, I had catastrophic health insurance. I was self-employed and with an extensive, scary family history of cancer, I was afraid that I would get sick and would go bankrupt if I had anything less than catastrophic health care. So I paid $150/month premiums in order to be capped at a flat $1,000 deductible. After that, everything would be covered up to $1 million / year.

One year, a single ER trip followed a series of routine medical procedures - pap smear, mammogram, yearly check-up with the doctor. That one trip meant I met the yearly deductible and my insurance kicked it. I knew then that as long as I was independent, I would need catastrophic health insurance.

Of course, my premiums were immediately raised to $300/month, doubling because of a single hospital visit. For those wondering, that was almost the same cost as my rent at that time (I shared a house and if memory serves, we each paid approximately $350/month). Now, I know my insurance was not expensive compared to my US friends who have multiple kids. But I was a single 30 year old, non-smoking female in good health without a history of anything serious.

At this point, I feel the need to translate the concept of premiums and deductibles into a UK term for my European-based friends, but I've never had to buy health insurance here so I have to use my phone insurance experience and hope it works. A premium is your monthly payment just to have health insurance, while the deductible is both the amount the claim must exceed before it kicks in and the excess you pay.

For my first year in the UK, I retained my US-based private health care. Even after learning I was covered by the UK National Health Service, I was afraid to give it up. Thinking I would return to the US in an uncertain job market, I didn't want to go through the pain of finding a new insurer - or try to anticipate what that cost would look like after time without insurance. So I paid over $5,000 to cover me for 18 months just so I didn't lose the right to be healthy.

For my UK and European friends, the concept of anyone paying $5,500 in addition to taxes just for a right to be taken care of is an insane proposition. Some of my friends know of my first trip to use English health care. I had one of those things women get that we need to go get an official diagnoses even though we know what the problem is. I called the Nurse's hotline to ask if I really needed a diagnoses or could pick something up over the counter. I needed a diagnoses. I explained I was American and asked how to use my health insurance here, knowing it covered me overseas.  She said she wasn't sure of the procedures in my area, but I would probably have to pay $25 and then submit the claim for reimbursement.

I went, got my diagnoses, and picked up the drugs from the counter as I'd been told to do. "How much do I owe you?" I asked, flipping my wallet open and putting my hands on two £10 notes. "£7.10" the sweet nurse replied.  "Oh, um, I think I owe you more than that.  I'm an American."

I said more about US health care than I intended.  As these graphs, compiled by Ezra Klein, indicate, as an American, I'm used to paying almost double the average cost to industrialised states. And according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that increased cost didn't get me better health care. It got me "mediocre" healthcare.

The nurse behind the counter looked at my slightly indulgently and said, "You live here, though, don't you?" "Yes, but I'm a student."  "Right, but you live here, so you only have to pay for the prescription."  "But, I'm a student. I think I owe you more money." "No, love, you live here so you only have to pay for the prescription." "But, I'm just a student. From the US."  "Right."  I could tell she was starting to lose her patience with my inability to accept free-ish healthcare. She reassured me the lady on the phone probably didn't realise I was a student, but it really, truly was free. Except for the £7.10 for the prescription.  If I was poor, that could be waived, too.

I left, set aside £25 in an envelope and didn't touch it for 3 more months, waiting for the bill to come. It didn't.

Then, there was the time I broke my leg. I got laughing gas and morphine, an ambulance ride to the hospital, x-rays (multiple), a cast, crutches, pain killers, and follow up appointments for the grand total of $ 0.  For those from the US, let me reiterate: that's not a typo.  I paid zero dollars.

Technically, I paid for those X-rays, etc., before and after through the taxes I pay.  But it was so nice in that moment to not have to quickly calculate how much money I had in my bank account, minus rent and phone and food costs to determine how much I could offer as a first payment towards my treatment.  I just sat there, begging people to give me water and getting a recurring 'no' until a doctor could confirm I didn't need surgery.

I also thought about how I would get home, when I should bother my friends with the information that I'd broken my leg, and whether I should call my parents before I learned about that potential surgery.  I never once thought, "Can I afford this?"

When the laughing gas wasn't working, I didn't hesitate to tell the paramedic it wasn't working. Well, that's not quite true. I tried the gas for about 7 minutes; it regulated my breathing but did nothing for my pain.  The US-trained part of my brain briefly thought, "Shit - can I afford --" before the UK side of my brain said, "Don't worry! You won't need to pay for a switch in treatments!"  I looked him in the eye and said, "This isn't working. I need something stronger."  He offered morphine; I said yes.  Within 5 minutes, I was feeling a lot better.

Then there was the cancer scare. I haven't told very many people about the cancer scare.  It happened over the summer, and I got the news 2 days before I left for Turkey. They set up the follow-up for the day after I returned.  Two weeks later, a letter informed me I was cancer free, but would need to be seen again in six months.

The other health issues were minor and I never worried that they would actually affect my ability to get health insurance in the US.  What I was concerned about was how my use of a national, universal, and foreign health insurance system would be counted by US insurance companies, who, prior to Obamacare and if they accepted you, had to cover pre-existing conditions if your insurance had not lapsed by more than 6 months. If they accepted you. At least that was the rule in Ohio.

It was the cancer scare that made me realise I actually only knew the rules in Ohio.  And even then, I didn't know whether the UK national insurance system would count as being "insured." Surely it would, right?

I only cancelled my almost-as-expensive-as-my-rent health insurance when I was back in the UK starting my PhD.  I realised I was staying for at least 3-4 years and that I would hopefully get a job teaching here after. I decided the expense of US-based health care was too much.  I was paying $3600 / year not to be insured in the present, but to protect the potential need for health insurance five years down the road.

That cancer scare, though, made me wonder: what if my UK coverage doesn't count?  What if returning to the US suddenly meant I couldn't get health insurance that included coverage for cancer treatments?

The answer is clear: I literally cannot return to the US but for Obamacare.  I would have to do anything I could to find a job or way to stay in the UK or Europe.  I would seriously need to update my online dating profiles.  I would need to be willing to accept jobs below my qualifications and to do things like teach property or wills and trusts, not exactly my go-to for excited teachings.  But I would do it if it would secure me the necessary right to remain.  The right to have a future cancer diagnosis covered.

That's ultimately what Obamacare - actually, the Affordable Care Act - is about.  People want to make it into something big and bad: a tax; socialism; government intrusion; new welfare; Hitler-esque notions of government.  But Obamacare is actually about allowing people to get coverage that couldn't get coverage under the old system. It's about giving people an opportunity to be healthy.

Some will get that through government assistance, but I am unlikely to be one of those people.  I am one of those people who are not only willing but able to pay into the system for insurance but who under previous rules would be unlikely to get coverage if I returned to the US - or at least unlikely to get insurance that would cover the thing I fear the most and the thing I would most need coverage for (cancer).

Of course, this is the second time that cancer has dictated life and career choices in my family.  The last time was after my mother's treatment for breast cancer in the 1980s.  It was before HIPPA - the health care privacy act that ensures if you're diagnosed with something your employers or future employers don't get to know about it unless you tell them.  It's the law that helps tamper down health-related discrimination.  Before HIPPA, my mother was told she was too costly to employ as a teacher; her cancer negated her excellence in the classroom and she took a job selling real estate. It's a nice job, and she's good at it, but I've always thought she should've been back in the classroom.  By the time HIPPA was introduced, though, her teaching credentials had lapsed and it would've been costly for her to go back and pass the classes necessary to get re-licensed.

We passed HIPPA because of the absurdity of situations like my mother's; we passed the ACA because of the absurdity of situations like mine:  that someone can be denied health care not for anything within their control, but for the very reason they would need health care, because they got sick.

Now the GOP wants to stop it and they are willing to sacrifice the good faith and credit of the US to do so. For reasons they haven't ever been able to really articulate, much less prove - unless "it's evil" and "it's socialism" are legitimate accusations.  But they aren't.

The ACA is one of the most capitalism-loving forms of universal health care. It actually mirrors the systems in the Netherlands and Germany. It allows for insurance companies to be competitive, while requiring they also do part of the job of the medical profession: ensure people who get sick can get better to the extent science and God allow, not to the extent their wallets can afford.

Yes, the ACA requires people to buy something, but it requires them to buy something that we as a society would have to pay for if they didn't buy it. In that sense, it encourages individual responsibility.

If I had never left the US, I still could have found myself in the same position I'm in now - cancer scare, no private insurance. It's the reality for millions of Americans, sometimes through their own fault, often times through no fault of their own.  If that had been the situation, I would have found out about the potential cancer after more symptoms developed, meaning after it had developed into cancer and had progressed to a stage where it is harder to fight. My necessary or emergency care would be covered by the government, meaning the other taxpayers.  And I would probably die because I wouldn't be able to afford the medicine or treatment. So the government would be paying not to get me better but to make sure my pain wasn't excruciating while I died.

Instead, the ACA gives me an opportunity for early diagnosis, takes the burden off other taxpayers to pay for my care, and gives me an opportunity to live. It gives me assistance in finding healthcare if I've had problems finding it, or if I'm still too poor to actually afford it.  And it does so while remaining true to capitalism.

The GOP wants to make the ACA some big bad socialist plot to kill America.  It's not.  It's a program for people like me.  And it's the only hope I have of returning to the US full-time in the future.

35 Things I'm Thankful For - Final 5 Countdown!

Okay, I've been sick so I didn't get to do my final 5.  At times, the computer screen has given me a headache; at other times I've just felt too foggy to write anything clear (as my PhD is currently proving); and at other times, I was so far behind my actual work because of being sick that I couldn't justify the time out to blog.  Now, all those things are still true, but I've been inspired this morning to finish this post (it helps that I had 4/5 of this written before).

Now, I'm probably the only person in the world who divides 35 into 4 parts, but I did. You check out parts 1, 2, and 3 by clicking on the relevant number.  This one is a bit sappy at times. They say bad writing often comes from too many emotions.  This is definitely true here.  I would apologize, but I like being human enough that sometimes my emotions make my writing just gawd-awful.

5.  Being an American.* If you'd asked me 12 years ago if I was thankful for this, I probably would've said no.  I would've told you all about how the US is imperialistic in its treatment of other areas, and how the concept of us being the "most free nation on Earth" is a lie told to us by the elites in an attempt to suppress resistance to economic tyranny.  Let's be honest, I still kind of feel that way at times. Americans sometimes think we have a lock on the issue of freedom, like if it isn't practiced the way we practice it than it doesn't count. But they are confusing freedom with economic liberalism. Freedom is so much more than that. It should be about the ability one has to actually operate on a meritocracy and to improve and better their life.  Yet, in the US, 49% of children born into poverty will spend at least half their childhoods in poverty, and "are more likely to be poor between ages 25 and 30, drop out of high school, have a teen nonmarital birth, and have patchy employment records than those not poor at birth." Income inequality in the US reached a record high in 2009, which threatens the stability of our economy, and the likelihood of those lower on the socioeconomic rungs from climbing the ladder to higher socioeconomic standards. Intergenerational economic mobility is believed to be pretty much flat since 1990 (p.15 of the link), and the riches 1% received 121% of the income gains during this economic recovery. To me, this means we are not a free society.  Freedom involves more than just the ability to speak one's mind; it involves the ability to develop and then use one's talents for one's benefits and for the benefit of the greater society.  But our educational funding system is massively defective and the increasing reliance on corporate-provided education is likely only exacerbating this, so that there is little opportunity to develop one's talents, much less use them to their fullest benefit. Our "economic freedom" is therefore limited; it is limited to operating with a supply-demand economy and then primarily within the social rung into which we were born.

In that sense, we are not the free-est society.  But, that said, I do appreciate our stance on free speech and free religion.  Perhaps I'm one of the few human rights activists who believes the US's position, which allows the KKK to march through a town of Holocaust survivors, is a good thing - though I'm definitely not the only human rights activist to think that (yes, my conservative friends, it was a progressive, ACLU employed, George Soros-loving liberal human rights activist who defended the KKK's right to free speech; he was also a refugee from Nazi Germany). I think the US's standards for separation of church and state are appropriate and set the right tone, even if that tone is sometimes usurped by crazy people.

More importantly, I've come to appreciate the other freedoms we enjoy in the US.  Like the freedom of knowing that we aren't going to turn into a dictatorial state. I know that some of my conservative friends like to think that Barack Obama is a socialist, a fascist and a dictator, but the reality is that we've had over 200 years of peaceful democratic transitions in our society.  That's a pretty long track record that we need to work to protect, but it's not one that is actually in any threat today. Even amongst the rightest of the right, we have little of the type of discourse that makes me worry about the democratic foundations of our country. There are occasions when I worry about an actual internal armed conflict or civil war, but dictatorial regime? No.

This has become particularly relevant to me this year as I've watched friends get arrested in Azerbaijan and others have been refused the right to leave their country.  That's right - they can't leave, not because another state won't take them but because their own government won't let them go.  Today alone, facebook told me of two friends facing this reality. One was leaving his home country to attend an international conference, ironically on freedom of speech, when immigration officials told him he wasn't allowed to fly. He was on a government black list because of his pro-democracy activism.  After negotiations, it appears he's on his way, but I do worry about his ability to return later. Another friend is already outside his home country but had to renew his exit visa.  That's right - some countries still have exit visas, meaning you can only leave with government permission. Even if you're outside of your home country, you can't travel to another unless your exit visa is valid.  He needed to renew his exit visa to attend an international competition later this month. He's been trying for a month or two to get this renewal and today he was finally told he was denied.  Yes, he was denied.  So even though he's already outside of his home country, he's not allowed to go anywhere else until he returns home, and then he has to hope someone will give him an exit visa.

When a friend of a friend was killed this week, I had a serious conversation about the level of danger my friend faced upon her return home. I've had friends who were beaten by police and whose family members were torn from them and thrown in jail. I have friends who have been kicked out of Israel because they want to work on human rights issues in Palestine. Friends who can't work for their government because of their connection to an American woman (that would be me).  Friends who regularly scrub their facebook pages clean of potentially "controversial" posts about their government, or about economics, or freedom or politics. I've known people who couldn't return to their home countries because of the religion they chose, the sexuality they concealed, or the courses they wanted to pursue. And this year, I did a human rights training for people who spent years in jail because of their belief in democracy.  This is the reality of living in a dictatorship.  (And while Israel is technically a democracy, it is unaccountable to the Palestinian people it rules over, so I place it, for the purpose of this discussion and limited to the case of its treatment of people who live and work in Palestine, in this category).

I realize that given my career choice I am more likely to have friends deemed "enemies of the state" in dictatorial, authoritarian regimes. Human rights activists face this kind of threat everywhere. But every time this reality comes up, I realize how lucky I was to be born in the USA (and not in the Bruce Springsteen lyrics kind of way). I am grateful for those who have fought long before I was born to ensure I have the freedom I do.  I see the ideals of the US's founding fathers and mothers(!) in the faces of my friends who seek justice and human rights in their own countries. I am reminded that those who fought in the Revolutionary War risked everything - literally everything - to create a democratic institution that was answerable to the people.  Some now want to claim what they opposed was taxation, but those individuals for that the thing they opposed was actually taxation without representation.  It is the democratic experience that they wanted, fought for, and eventually won. It was the shackles of tyranny, the right of a dictator far removed and unanswerable to those whose lives he made miserable, that they were throwing off.  That is the same fight my friends fight now.  It inspires me, but it also makes me immensely grateful that this is a fight I didn't actually have to wage on a daily basis in my home country.

It is not only in the USA where one finds this kind of freedom, but I wasn't born anywhere else. My sense of self, my understanding of identify and freedom and democracy are all intrinsically linked to my childhood and to the sense of patriotism instilled in my family.  This patriotism does not require absolute adherence and belief in the goodness of the USA, but it does not require a resilient determination to make the US as free as it can be.

For that, I am very grateful.

*I use that as the demonym for someone from the USA. I recognize the colonial heritage associated with the concept of the "United States of America" as being something distinct from European owned territories within the Americas, but unfortunately non of my friends from the Americas have been able to come up with an English language demonym for someone from the USA. This does not mean that the USA is the only part of the Americas and I intentionally use USA rather than "America" to refer to the country I am from, but the demonym "American" is used as someone from the USA, not the greater inclusive "Americas." 

4.  Animals and their unending love. My family have had and continue to have a lot of animals.  Mercedes, Duchess, Buddy, Toby, Sunshine the Bird, Dan the Turtle, numerous hamsters, Bexley, Shallah, Foxie, MacKenzie, Bonkers, LeiLei, Velvet, and Houdini have showered me with affection and love.  Well, Dan didn't, but he's a turtle (who was named for Dan Quayle - what were we thinking??). In turn, they've taught me to show love, to have patience, and to set down the computer because they won't stop head-butting me until I do.

3.  My extended family.  Like probably most families, there's a range of political beliefs in my extended family. There's a significant number of people in my extended family who disagree with my political opinions and can't relate to my constant need to be overseas.  They love me anyhow.  The ones who agree excitedly take time out of their schedules whenever we meet to talk about my newest adventure or non-adventurous accomplishments and to encourage me in my newest plans and next steps.  The ones who disagree, do it with love and respect and still encourage me to live my life with joy and pride.  I'm blessed to have this large community who help me better understand myself every day.

Two of my uncles, one of my aunts, and several of my cousins have been particularly supportive, so I want to say a special thanks to them (they know who they are). Their love, encouragement and support have led me to do more in my life than I would have imagined.

2.  My immediate family. I've written about my siblings before, so this will be a truncated love letter.  I had 5 spots left on this list today and could have easily spent one number on each immediate family member -- mom, dad, brother, sister, sister(-in-law*) -- though that would've left my awesome nephew out and he definitely shouldn't be left out.  Plus, I would have felt like I was ranking them, and that would be awful.  Realistically, they are a unit, so treating them as one is appropriate.

My family is pretty freaking amazing in that they're each these unique little balls of goodness that run around the world making it better. If I'm a "puppy dogs and rainbows" kind of girl, I'm surrounded by family members who are kittens and sunshine. One sister is off helping to prevent a war and the other is trying to make democracy work the way it is supposed to. My brother is one of the kindest, most generous and giving individuals I know. He's also a pretty bad ass attorney. He makes videos for my sister and I of our nephew doing all the cute things that make the first years of any baby's life precious. His kindness and sweetness exists in spite of the fact that he has prosecuted some of the absolute worst kinds of human behavior. Child molesters, rapists, domestic abusers - that used to be his daily life.  I'm so glad it's not anymore (or at least I hear about it a lot less now).  But he did it because he believes in justice and peace.  Pretty lofty ideals for a (relatively) humble man.

And my nephew! Seriously the cutest child in the world.  I would post his picture here but I think he has a right to privacy and his father and I already abuse that enough on facebook.  (Abuse is not the appropriate word; disregard, perhaps?)  I have often wondered if I could actually be a good parent.  It involves a lot of sacrifice and I can be a pretty selfish person. Then my nephew came along.

I don't get to see him enough, and we don't skype as much as we should, but watching him grow up and taking pride in the little accomplishments, like the first time he said "da da" (on Father's Day!) or the first time I saw him run or throw a ball... he fills my life with such joy and wonder that I have come to realize I could actually do this thing called parenthood.  I would actually even like it.  Well, assuming my kids are half as cool as he is. 

I also have two other nephews and a niece, thanks to my sister(-in-law). They're amazing, kind and generous.  We like different things in the world (as we should; the oldest is about 20 years younger than me), but I appreciate how much seeing the world through their eyes changes the meaning of life.  They're awesome kids and I'm lucky I got to inherent them.

My parents are a huge force in the lives my siblings and I have chosen. At a time when government was criticized and its servants demeaned - so pretty much from Reagan until now in the US - my parents chose civil service. It was not out of some desire to be lazy - my father used to work 16 hours a day sometimes - but because they saw something good and noble about serving others. My mother was a teacher and after cancer wrecked her body and her job choices (pre-HIPPA, cancer could be a good reason not to give someone a job), she chose to serve through local government while working as a real estate agent. She fought for ideals and quality service; generations of children in my hometown owe her a debt of gratitude. More recently, my dad was elected as a city official. He did it because, like my mom, he believes that common sense, education, and hard work are each part of the process for securing a better life, and if you have those skills you should use them to the benefit of others.

Having a political and public family is hard at times. People are often stupid and disrespectful, and you have to listen and continue to smile despite them saying and writing things that you know are lies. My sister(-in-law) was pregnant when running for office. On the online high-profile endorsement from the local newspaper, supporters of her opponent suggested my nephew would have to be raised by a nanny. Apparently, by running for office, my sister was doing a disservice to society because she would be abandoning her child, and the child would end up a sullen teenager hell-bent on destroying the city and society and probably all that is good and sacred in the world. Now, why my nephew would need a nanny when his father could watch him is beyond me - and my brother was (thankfully, rightfully, justly) outraged by the suggestion that my nephew would be "abandoned" simply because his mom worked. I was outraged that someone thought it still appropriate to chastise a working mother, let alone my amazing sister. I wanted to hit people; to write ranty messages all over that comment section; to start a campaign about women in the public sphere. And, oh yeah, to hit someone.  My family didn't let me.  Mostly because they know that this is part of what it means to serve the public.  I hate it at times, but I'm also grateful for their love and devotion not just to themselves or to me but to the world and to the people around them.

They also happen to fill my life with joy and love. The support I get from them has often made the difference in my ability to stick through a tough situation. I wouldn't be able to do my job, or live my life as fully as I do, if it were not for their help. They're always ready to help me work through a problem, listen to me vent, or lend me money when I'm worried about coming up short. In short, they are amazing and my life wouldn't be nearly what it is now if they weren't in it.

I generally just call my sister-in-law my sister, but sometimes that could lead to some gross confusion (like my brother and sister having a baby together). And since most of the people who read this blog have also known my family for a really long time, I want to be clear that neither of my parents had an affair that produced a child we never acknowledged until I was an adult. So where it's necessary for these reasons to specify sister-in-law, you get the "in-law" in parenthesis.

1.  Jesus.  Jesus makes me a better person. I have some pretty Machiavellian tendencies if left unrestrained. Jesus restrains them. My relationship with God, choosing to be a Christian, and seeking after what is good and just is the basis of my work.  I wanted to type that it informs all I do, but that would be a lie.  I try to have it inform all I do. I fail, though.  I'm human.  It's why I'm glad that God is God and I am not. Some people question me as to whether it's really about God.  It is.  I know when I want to do something and when I'm hearing God's voice tell me not to.  I know when I ignore that voice and when I follow it.  I know when it is me trying to convince myself that God is okay with something, and when it's actually God saying something.  I've tried to convince myself a lot.  I'm happiest, though, when I'm not trying to convince myself. When I just listen for and follow God's will in my life. He gives me strength, peace and resilience and I am deeply grateful that I learned to trust him when I was still relatively young.

35 Things I'm Thankful For - Part 3.

This is part 3 of my series on the 35 things I'm thankful for.  Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

15.  My mentors. I know I'm spoiled in my life generally, and I'm extra spoiled in my PhD. Some students in the world can't find a single mentor besides their supervisor; I entered my PhD with six in the corridor upstairs from my office. Over time, my mentors have changed in nature and number. I was devastated when I got the news that Kevin Boyle had passed (that link is to my favorite obituary for him). I was not only losing a mentor, but a friend, and his loss still motivates and saddens me today. Shortly thereafter, two others went to part-time status and then some went on maternity leave. One took on extra administrative responsibilities. My ability to jump into their office whenever I needed a pep talk or career advice has, at times, been limited. Even as their availability changed, their impact did not. I also found new mentors, people who create space in their professional lives for me. Each new mentor eventually becomes a friend - and sometimes my friends become mentors. Their generosity of spirit allows me to develop and to pass on the lessons they give me.  Sometimes I feel I should be further in my development and without a need for mentors anymore; but then I realize that even if I was able to live without them, I wouldn't want to. The give-and-take of a good discussion over my PhD inspires me to go deeper. The constant reminder that I'm entitled to say "no" is sometimes both a necessity and a godsend. They have seen me at my worst as an academic and a writer, and yet they always encourage me to be my best. I am, forever, indebted to their care and attention.

14.  My legs. I broke one last year and it still hurts, particularly when it's cold or when I'm sick (like now, when I'm both cold and sick).  But they work. The broken one healed; the non-broken one compensated in the meantime.  They propel me. They let me feel the sensation of running and bicycling, and walking with friends through a muddy path. Legs are pretty great and I don't think we give them enough credit. Or perhaps that was just me.

13. Post-it notes. I also love whoever invented them (though I understand that it was neither Romy nor Michelle). They're so pretty and they make my life seem so much more organized.

12. Earplugs. For a while, I couldn't find earbuds that worked with my ears, but a pound store (like a dollar store, but in British pounds) near my home had these awesome ones with little jelly ends that fit snuggly inside my years. Now I can listen to Frightened Rabbit and Taylor Swift one right after the other and no one judges me. Well, until now. And while I like being exposed to new music, I'm so glad I don't need to listen to the favorite songs of every random guy on the underground.

11. Crayons.  I particularly like Crayola's box of 64 (though I'm devastated to learn, via wikipedia, that some of my favorite colours were retired!). I can't find the 64 box here in the UK so I keep myself busy with a box of 8. Crayons are brilliant (with almost all the definitions of that word applying). When I'm stumped on my PhD or in need of a break, I find colouring or drawing gives me the mental break necessary to engage with my PhD again from a fresh start. It's also one of those fun words where the more you look at it, the more certain you are it can't be a real word. But it is.

What my crayon box looks like.
Image from Crayola.

10. Martin Luther King, Jr., J.F.K., R.F.K., Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Susan B. Anthony. Jane Austin, J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Khalil Gilbran. Pablo Neruda. Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. Maya Angelou and Gloria Steinem. They inspire me and challenge me. At times in my life when I've felt I had few friends, they were my friends. When I feel disconnected from life, they connect me again. They also make me sound smart when I'm at a party. Or at least they did back when I liked being pretentious.

9.  New Year's Eve. I have an awesome group of friends I spend most New Year's Eve with. This year, though, one is on a Navy warship, one is playing doctor (well, being a doctor), one is living in another country, and then there's me and my PhD-related income levels that make travel home during the holidays unlikely at best. We've had to postpone NYE this year, but it's coming up. This one day of the year reminds me of the love I am the recipient of the rest of the time; it also lets me make resolutions I'll quickly break, and gives me a sense of newness that motivates small changes in my life.

8.  Wine. I can live without wine. I have been to Muslim states where it's unavailable or prohibitively expensive, so I know I can do it. And I've applied to go to Muslim states again in the near-ish future, so I may have to do it. But I just think life is better with wine than without.

7.  Time. I wish we had more of it, but the concept of it and the uses of it are pretty nice.

6.  My girlfriends. I'm sure that with all the love I've been foisting on my guy friends, they've probably felt neglected on my blog. And girls already get a bad rep as friends. When we're young, women are taught by society that gossiping is a way to make friends. This leads to an age-old lie often told that women make bad friends. We're not as accepting as men. We're not as trustworthy or laid back or fun or interesting. All we talk about are boys and each other and hair and make up. I hate when I hear that same old trope about how girls are the worst, and you can never trust a girl friend, and they'll stab you in the back, and blah blah blah.  Have I been stabbed in the back by supposed friends? Absolutely. Both times I've been cheated on, a friend was involved. Nothing like feeling absolutely sucker punched in the gut when you discover not one but two people you trusted had betrayed you. But that's two women out of the hundreds I have been close friends with.

While my junior high and high school circles of friends changed almost as quickly as the seasons and brought drama and back-stabbing, and gossip and fights, my grown-up girl friends have filled my life with love, poetry, artwork, prayers, hugs, long emails when I'm far from home, extended phone calls, cocktails and wine, conversations about the meaning of life, career advice, proof-reading skills, nights out, nights in, and a shared love of romantic comedies we completely recognize are not true to life. They have held my hair when I'm sick, made me soup when I had a broken leg, hugged me when I cried over a broken heart, helped me pack for my grandmother's funeral, lent me hundreds of books, and given me pep talks before every board meeting or interview I've had. They laugh at my ridiculously embarrassing stories - getting my suitcase caught in the turnstiles at a tube station; tripping and falling into the lap of a stranger; or the time I tried to stay warm at a football game and ended up cutting off the circulation in my legs (long story; high school; that's all you get) - and ultimately they get me to laugh, too. They are my cheerleaders and my confidants.

I have an ever-growing set of presents that remind me of these faithful, wonderful, and loving girl friends. Their flowers, teddy bears, fun dresses, jewelry, books, handbags, and music allow me to stay connected when facebook, the internet, and the phone just don't seem to work as well as we expect. They bless my life with happiness. If I had to endure a few years of gossip and drama, or a few moments of heartbreaking betrayal to find the gems that decorate my life, then the payoff was well worth the cost.

35 Things I'm Thankful For - Part 2

Here's part 2 of my 4-part series on 35 things I'm thankful for, in honour of my 35th birthday. (Part 1 is here.)

24.  Facebook. No one in my family knows how to make an international phone call except my sister and one uncle. Literally, no one else.  A certain parent of mine gets confused because there are too many numbers. It doesn't matter how many times I say "you can just input those numbers," they don't believe me. My parents don't even answer the phone when I call because my number shows up in their cell phones as a US number with an area code of 447.  My parents have apparently been convinced -- for five years! -- that my number is that of a telemarketer.  There is no 447 area code in the US.  There's a 440, which is by their house so they would answer it anyhow, and 441 is Bermuda (442 and 443 are apparently also US codes). But no 447. This hasn't deterred them from ignoring my calls for multiple years.

And when I say my number starts +44, none of my US friends know what the + means.  Okay, "none" might be an exaggeration; but "most" wouldn't be.

Facebook lets me connect with my family and friends in a way I just couldn't when I was living overseas in the pre-fb days (yes, my students, I remember life before facebook).  I've reconnected with old friends, stayed in touch with new ones, and even have about 12 facebook friends I've never met.  I wish they'd stop messing with their privacy settings, and I really, really wish the messages didn't now show when someone has read the message.  But, on the whole, I'm grateful for facebook and facebook-like technologies.

Oh, and it's a really good way to waste some time when I need a mental break.

23. Butternut squash. You can use it in so many recipes! And it's soooo good.  My other thankful-for foods: avocados; asparagus; artichokes; chocolate; and ice cold water. Okay, water's not really a food but I love the non-taste of ice cold water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cucurbita_moschata_Butternut.png

22. Chai tea lattes from Starbucks. Seriously. When I feel lost, or upset, or just far from home, sitting and sipping this drink - with alterations suggested to me by a barista I once dated - makes me happy.

21.  My friend R, who once told me that if I couldn't name the restaurant a guy had taken me to on a first date, I wasn't in love. That advice - and strangely a dozen other little things he said to me in the brief period when our friendship involved actual face-to-face contact - stays with me. He's an under-appreciated man.

20.  This video.

And this one.

And the woman who shared them for me to find on my facebook feed.

I think the human experience is amazing. We subdivide and sub-subdivide and are always trying to define ourselves based on meaningless factors like age, race, gender, language, accent, disability, in some bizarre attempt to find those who are most like us, to define ourselves and others as acceptable or unacceptable.  Yet, the human experience transcends these issues. It's the moment when you've embarrassed yourself so completely that looking at someone makes you cringe; and knowing that later in life you'll probably laugh at yourself (and sometimes that later in life happens within the hour when you run home to your housemate). It's the first time you see someone who takes your breath away. It's the first time you had to break someone's heart. It's the song that makes you cry when you're not even fully sure of the words. It's the first time you've failed and weren't sure how you were going to get back up. Then getting back up. It's your first funeral; the weird sensation of seeing someone you knew, whose last conversation you remember, just laying there, made up by someone else's hands. It is the knowledge a loved one will die. It's holding the hand of your grandmother as she forgets who you are and her eyes glaze over and she starts talking about the dance you supposedly went to last weekend when you were both 18. It's hoping that someday your grandchild will hold your hand when you do the same.

This video shows us how our human experience is more common than we want to recognize. If we just let ourselves experience what we should - our commonality - we'd find a lot more friends and far fewer strangers.

Oh - and the woman who shared these?  Pretty. Fricking. Awesome.  I've known her since we were children.

19.  My own human experience. I remember doing a speech in first year undergrad and looking into the eyes of the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life - still today - and actually catching my breath and thinking "wait, oh no - what was I was saying?"  I don't know if anyone noticed that moment. I recovered relatively quickly and it wasn't reflected on my evaluations, but that moment... seared into my brain. So are these: My first kiss was with Eddie B. when I was about 5 years old. We didn't know what we were doing; we just followed what we saw on television. I used to cheer with Heather and Krissy when the local boys played football until we got tired of standing on the sidelines and decided to play with them. One time, they picked me up and carried me backwards so my team lost. That seemed massively unfair but today it just makes me laugh. Sitting next to Vince in Mr. Ingersoll's history class. The moment I knew I was taking Brian to senior year homecoming; he didn't know it yet, but I had made up my mind. Calling a girl the b-word after a parade, while we were still wearing our flag corps outfits. She smacked me and before I could respond my friend Mo grabbed me and carried me away. My first kiss with each of the two men I've loved. Taking my first Japanese bath, and walking out to a room full of people clapping for me. Teaching myself how to drive stick shift on an island in Malaysia. Sitting at a table in Copenhagen surrounded by people speaking to each other in any one of a six languages, coming from a dozen countries, and thinking "this is what home feels like." My JD and LLM graduations. Standing on the northern most point of Cyprus. Drinking beers - and tequila shots, and fruity cocktails - at Panini's with a series of great friends. The first conversation I had with AV. Making homemade pasta in Jo's kitchen. Carrying my grandmother's casket. Without meaning to, my cousins, my sister and I all wore red heels, and I remember the sensation as mine sunk into the ground, feeling the casket's weight change with each movement any of us made. Hugging my sister before she left for Iraq. And then again when she left for the Mediterranean. Walking into Aya Sofia.

18.  Language and our capcity to use it. I am in awe of my friends, with their multiple languages and dozens of accents. I love that when we talk, and really connect, sometimes I forget that they have an accent. Or that I do. But I also enjoy the moments when our accents make us laugh, when an entire room will turn to me and expect me to translate for my flatmate -- who speaks English as her native language.

17. Balloons. They currently decorate both our ceiling and our floor and they make my house a more colourful experience.

16. Gerbera daisies.

http://frimminjimbits.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/gerbera-daisies.html

And forget-me-nots.

http://jv-foodie.typepad.com/foodie/2009/04/forgetmenots.html

35 Things I'm Thankful For - Part 1

I turned 35 this weekend.  In honour of that exciting day, I'll be doing a series of posts that will eventually result in my sharing 35 things I'm thankful for.  I started these several days before my birthday, but I was spoiled by amazing friends and as a result, I didn't finish typing them in.  So it's a little late, but they are coming in the next few days.

35.  My stuffed blue bear that Eddie M. gave me for my 8th birthday.  When I was young, I changed his name to match the name of whichever guy I had a crush on.  At some point, though, I felt that was giving the bear a complex, so around 10, I named him Blue Bear, and he has been with me ever since.  He's traveled around the world and even though he's spent too much of the last year packed away, Blue Bear is one of my most treasured possessions and a nice reminder that I'm never really far from home.

34.  The two men in my life that I've loved. When I think of the others I've tried to make it wok with, I realize how special these men were in my life. I feel lucky that they are who I've spent my time loving. I'm grateful for the lessons these relationships have given me.

33.  My mistakes. Sometimes, I've judged people too harshly at first, but through mutual recognition of our strengths and weaknesses, we've established great friendships. Sometimes, my mistakes have included over-extending myself and not protecting my own time and space. This has taught me how to do that now (well, sort of).  These mistakes though, have often resulted in great memories and have often provided me with a greater appreciation of my own strengths and weaknesses. I have become resilient through them.

32.  That I'm not a corporate lawyer anymore.  Well, mostly not a corporate lawyer anymore.  I have friends who love it and I deeply respect them, but corporate law was never for me. It's not why I went to law school; it's not who I am at the heart of it; and ultimately, it made me miserable even after I left it.  Human rights is what I was meant to do.  When I think of what else I could be doing with my life - things that would pay better, or give me an easier life in closer proximity to my family - I realize that I would probably be miserable doing anything other than what I am. I realize this might sound like corporate law was a "mistake," but it wasn't. It was a period of time I needed to go through, and it taught me a lot of valuable skills. I'm just glad I didn't need to do it for very long before I really found myself again. This is being true to myself, and if I had never done corporate law, I might never have realized that and always wondered about the path I didn't take.

31.   The men in my life I've never hooked up with. I've already written a full letter to them, but I'll add an addendum here. Since it's the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice today, I have heard a lot about how Mr. Darcy isn't real. Until this year, I've thought this true as well and lamented it with all the other women Jane Austin influenced.  But, I've come to realize that (a) I probably wouldn't actually want to marry William Darcy because he's a bit of a twat at points (even though in the end his good elements come clearly through) and (b) if you want a good Mr. Darcy substitute without the initial snobbery, pride and vanity, you can apparently find them in Central Asia! This year, I've been spoiled by men in this region. It's caused a great deal of feminist introspection by one of my flatmates and me and we've come to realize how much we appreciate that these guys who, in so many ways, embody the patriarchal societies in which they've been raised (sorry guys but it's kind of true).  Yet, their regular displays of chivalry are really appreciated in our house.  The other day, we spent at least a half-hour discussing how this could be and came to the conclusion that it's because when they are kind to us in "traditional ways," it's never out of condescension or pride, but out of respect and love. They'll carry our bags for us not because they think we're helpless and unable to do it, but because they like serving and respecting us in this manner.  They insist on walking me home not because they're actually worried about my getting robbed or assaulted (as I've pointed out numerous times, I've lived in my village for about 4 years without every coming to harm), but because they like serving and respecting us in this way.  They are true sweet gentlemen, who are quiet and humble.  And no - I'm not dating them; I'm just really impressed with these men and am lucky to have them in my life. So this is my advertisement for Central Asia. Women, if you want to meet a modern Mr. Darcy, go find a human rights activist from this area of the world. They're pretty freaking awesome.

30. My friend Julie, who first convinced me to go overseas.  Every day, I thank God for her and her influence. I love my life and can't believe I get to live it, but I also know that if I hadn't met Julie, I might not be where I am today. She is, truly, a gift from God.

29.  My teachers. Throughout my life, I've been blessed by great teachers. They have included or been my parents, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my cheerleaders, and my biggest supporters. They have challenged me and changed me, and they taught me how to do well what I love to do now.

28.  My hometown. While I mean Cleveland generally, I also mean my actual suburb specifically.  It was diverse and interesting and somehow still like a small town. The town has amazing people who taught me to look past differences and to serve both humbly and greatly.  And while my high school class had more than 350, we had relatively few problems of bullying and a real camaraderie that still lasts today. My classmates and neighbours still impress me daily with their commitment to service and to making the world a better, brighter place to live.

27. Great Lakes Brewery.  There's nothing like a GLB to make me feel like I'm at home.  If only they delivered to the UK.

26.  My time in Japan. I hate telling people now where I lived in Japan, getting their shocked and sympathetic looks when I say "Fukushima." I hate how they hesitate before asking me "So, um, when did you live there?" as if they're afraid I'm about to contaminate them with all my radioactivity.  I hate the way they clearly want to pry but they don't want to seem like they're prying.  That said, I loved my time there.  I loved the way the people in that town always reached out to help one another, and me. I loved the craziness of my daily life there, the way my students ran up to talk to me, the way some of my teachers tried to avoid talking to me, and how simply going to the post office or grocery store became an exercise in cross-cultural communication. Japan gave me a greater appreciation for the daily strength and challenges of those who are illiterate in any society, and it gave me a greater sense of who I am and what I'm capable of. Plus, it's still a fun party trick to bust out a little Japanese after a beer or two.

25. My passports. They're like little portable reminders of the cool places I've been.  And how awesome is it that a little set of papers can give you access to so many cultures, ideas, people, and unimaginable experiences?  Postcards are nice and picture books are interesting, but my passports... they let me engage with so much. 

Thanks for Giving

In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, Gaza's been on my mind.  A good friend was there - stayed there when most of the international staff evacuated because they felt the bombings made the risk-good balance tip towards 'risk'. The risk-good balance is, admittedly, a luxury of human rights activists: we get to determine when the risk to our life, health and bodily integrity outweighs the good we're likely to be able to accomplish. If it tips too far to 'risk', we can leave, unlike those we are leaving behind and unlike our military counterparts.  But while others determined the balance tipped too far into 'risk,' my friend stayed, giving interviews and sending our press releases about the conditions in an effort to raise international awareness.

And I prayed.  Because that's all I had to offer.

My sister likely sat off his coast. I don't really know - I don't get to know where she is, ever, when she's at sea.  I get to know an 'arena' or 'field' of service, or some other super Navy terminology that I don't know like "XIFOSD" which likely stands for something like Extra Intense Fighting Of Said Defenses" (yeah... you can tell how much I understand about the acronyms in her job).  I know the fleet she's assigned to - thanks to some newspaper article written around the time they deployed - but the Sixth Fleet is the entirety of the Mediterranean and consists - according to the Navy itself - of 40 ships, 175 aircraft and 21,000 people.  So maybe she was off Gaza; maybe she was pulled into Italy; maybe she was by Gibraltar. I don't get to know, so of course, I always assume the worse. And I assumed she and the entire 40 ships of the fleet and all their weaponry was all sitting off the coast of Gaza.

During Skype calls with my friend, I would hear this "clink clink."  It would have been nothing to me - a drippy faucet, something falling to the floor - except my friend asked, "Did you hear that?" He explained it was pretty close. It sounded different than I expected. It wasn't a loud boom, but a soft "clink clink" and it would happen again and again as we talked.  He could hear the drones but Skype's audio wasn't strong enough for me to hear.

As I thought about them sitting out there - miles from each other - I couldn't help but think of how thankful I am for each of them and for the service they offer. Once again, I know this leaves me sitting on a particular side of human rights activists. Many do not trust the military - of any country - and their skepticism has legitimate underpinnings: years of military coups in a variety of countries, disturbing videos showing the commission of war crimes, and the distribution of photos depicting torture give cause to those who distrust the military.  It is easy to paint those who serve with broad strokes: heroes or villains. White hats or black ones. Little room to recognize that the majority - of any military - may fit one mold while a minority break it.  The same, of course, is true for human rights activists - we just hate to admit that out loud sometimes because the cause!, the cause! is so noble, never realizing that when we do that we are only replicating the actions of those we so often denounce.

So, yes there are good and bad of both the military and human rights activists.  And yet, this week, all I kept thinking was how lucky I was to know dedicated, intelligent and willing servants for both fields.  Human rights activists, though, don't get internet memes or Christmas ornaments reminding people of the dedicated and awesome work they do. Probably because most people hate us as we have this insane habit of always siding with the underdog, but still...

So, I'm sharing the picture below - one of the many that popped up on my newsfeed thanking the US military for their service on this day of Thanks - to give thanks to those who work in the service of freedom overseas, regardless of how that work is described or what the title that comes before their name looks like.



And I'm going to take the unusual step and share two poems I wrote this week, one for my sister and one for my friend. I have no doubt that they are not good poetry, but it's a small offering of thanks to them both.

For a Navy Officer

To sit next to you on the couch,

watching movies that make us cry,

while we eat a tub of ice cream that we'll regret tomorrow --

that is what I dream of when I fall asleep.

The guns you fire and the records I type,

keep us from each other,

and each night is a fearful one praying for your safety;

I know sometimes it's just the same for you.

But my darling sister,

you are who I wish I was

and who I wish to sit next to on a Thursday evening,

eating leftover casseroles while we laugh at our parents

and remember the names of boys who used to sit with us.

This is what I'll dream of when I fall asleep.

For our activist

The sound of the bombs hitting comes through the audio on my computer.

Unlike the great booms Hollywood tells me to expect

it sounds like water dripping into an empty pan in my sink.

I imagine you sitting inside,

curtains closed so your room is not mistaken as a target.

You hear the drones fly overhead and have to hope they keep on flying.

I listen to the day's accomplishments, but you never mention the most important one:

"I survived to fight again."

Your weapons are the computer you use and the pens you chew with each new thought

hoping to rally the world to your view, to document the wrongs you know.

I'm glad you don't carry anything stronger with you, but I wish it wasn't a matter

of your pen against their drones.

An Open Love Letter to My Siblings

I started this a long time ago but just got around to finishing it.  Sorry siblings.  

But isn't it rewarding knowing that I wanted to write you an open love letter 

at least two times this year?

Recently, my brother "walk[ed] a mile in her shoes" - literally high heels - to raise awareness and money about sexual assault.  He's done this in years past and it's just one of the ways he rallies to support victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.  My brother is, and has been all my life, a true feminist: he supports equality amongst men and women (even if he regularly wants to protect his little sisters), and he matches his actions to his words by mentoring young women (including his sisters), working as an attorney to combat sexual assault and domestic violence, and giving of his time, talents and money to assist in raising awareness about issues of women's health and safety.

He also used to be a capital crimes prosecutor.

Sometimes, depending on how people meet me, they may only hear this latter fact and not the former.  When that happens, I've done a disservice to my brother, to his work, and to our relationship because I've only had the opportunity to portray a small sliver of the man he is.  And when that happens, it always throws me off a bit when people express a belief that we must have a really hard time getting along.  Because we disagree on a single political issue?

It happens with my sister as well.  She's in the US Navy.  An officer, she's currently the highest ranking female on her ship. She's a role model and a mentor for younger sailors, both men and women. She's also my best friend in the world (well, technically, she's tied with my mom).  She is the first person I want to talk to when something has gone right or wrong and when she's off at sea, I spend my days accumulating anecdotes to tell her when she's able to return to normal communication methods. (Some of those anecdotes actually work their way into emails, but a lot are just way more fun to tell her as she giggles through my 30-minute story.)

When people hear that I - a woman who loves travelling to random countries, has lived outside the US as an adult almost as long as I've lived in it, and who has sacrificed corporate law for international human rights law work - am related to a military officer and a former capital crimes prosecutor, they think I must be the black sheep of the family.  I'm not.  I'm actually not sure that we have a black sheep of the family.  We each claim it at different points for different reasons: my brother hadn't left the US and Canada until his honeymoon in his mid-30s while my sister and I both spent time abroad while still in undergrad; my sister isn't a lawyer, which she always points out makes her unique and different; and I'm - well, I've never fired a gun and I've never carried a government employee identification card that was my own. I also drink a lot less than they do and swear a lot more.

People think our values must not match. In fairness, our disagreements over the politics that inform our career choices have not always gone well.  We're siblings so even though we love each other  and we're all ridiculously proud of what the other does, we still have our fights.  And as with siblings, sometimes a fight over something like undone dishes or a conversation about a news story on a war in a far off place, will trigger ridiculous fights.  We know each other well enough to know how to push the buttons you can't always unpush.  I've said things to both my siblings that were inappropriate and hurtful.  I won't repeat what I said to my sister, but I will say that when my brother was doing capital crimes prosecution, I once told him he was a murderer. It was unfair and mean-spirited and it is one of the things I regret most in life.

They, too, have at times been dismissive of what I do - my brother once equating it to flittering around the world hugging people in the hopes it makes a difference. My sister admitted to me recently that she only just got comfortable with what I do a few years ago, and even then she wasn't always sure of it.  She'll tell her friends about the ridiculous questions I ask about her career (and they are ridiculous at times) and has waved away what I do as nothing more than puppy dogs and rainbows.  I do the touchy-feely-good stuff in the family while they do the "hard work" of "real jobs."

Thankfully, most of those fights appear in the past (hopefully all of them) as we've each come to realize that what we each do is an extension of the same fundamental worldview:  that the benefits of a free and democratic society demand service, and that the least in our society require our greatest protection.  I know it sounds cliched, and perhaps it is, but it's a value our parents brought us up with and perhaps without ever paying attention to how it informed our decision, we each chose careers we feel serve the underdogs in our society.

I don't agree with the death penalty.  I'm an abolitionist in that area. But my brother believes in justice and he got into capital crimes prosecution after dealing with the wretchedness that man can dole out to man (and to be gender neutral, that woman to woman or man to woman and vice versa, of course). He now does a lot of criminal defense, but regardless of which side of the bar he's on, he does criminal justice in an attempt to ensure the rule of law operates for those that society would ignore or persecute.  He does it because he believes in our justice system.  And he believes in service.

We will likely never agree on the issue of the death penalty - unless he decides I'm right  -  but, I know that this one aspect does not define us or our relationship.  It also doesn't mean that he's a bad person. It just means that even applying a similar world view, and even understanding the same facts, we can reach different opinions on the necessity of something.

I also don't agree with many wars.  I used to be a complete pacifist before I visited the Normandy beaches, some concentration camps, and Holocaust museums.  I've visited the DMZ on the Korean border, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and a host of war sites both domestic and international.  I have come to appreciate that at times a state must go to war, though those reasons should be limited and principally for the defense of one's own nation or for the defense of the vulnerable (yes, I said it and intentionally so). But wars need to be rare and they should protect those who choose not to go to war.

That's part of why I appreciate my sister's service.  It principally comes from the same fundamental belief that wars should be limited but that those who do not want to or cannot serve shouldn't have to.  She once told me she serves so I, with my protestations of recent conflicts, don't have to.  But there's more to it than that.  She serves because she believes in something bigger than herself - in a democracy that serves freedom. 

I don't think she naively believes the US is the only democratic nation that serves freedom. She won't discuss her political beliefs with me at all because she believes her job for now is to serve whatever the will of the people is, so she votes but doesn't tell us who or what she votes for. I think she realizes the flaws in our democratic system - she does have a postgraduate degree in politics - and in the positions and policies our politicians sometimes adopt. Yet, she believes that a democratic nation must be able to protect itself and those who cannot protect themselves.

Hers is a service of sacrifice, too.  She is limited in who she can befriend and who she can date - only officers within two ranks of her, and for dating, no one in her direct line of command.  She serves far from home and perhaps (though she's never said it explicitly) not always in places or for people she would want to serve.

There are a lot of similarities between those who choose a military life and those who choose a life in human rights.  People don't always appreciate that; I didn't always appreciate that.  But ultimately we are two sides of the same coin in many respects.  I recognize that not all military guys or women are good people - we have defined war crimes for a reason.  But not all human rights activists are either, and the broad stroke of the military or police forces automatically being the enemy of the good, white-hatted human rights activist has to stop. My sister is my living proof that those who serve in the military can do so honourably and with the same intentions as those of us who do human rights. We have come to appreciate that the biggest difference in what we do is not what we believe in or why we do it, but rather whether there's a Christmas ornament that recognizes our service.* My parents buy me Christmas ornaments with doves and peace signs to symbolize what I do; my brother doesn't even get career-oriented Christmas ornaments because who wants to celebrate lawyers? My sister, however, has a Christmas ornament that declares her an "American hero," in big red, white and blue letters.  That, of course, is not because our values distinguish us or our actions, but because society does not yet accept the interdependence of the two careers.  I'm just grateful that my siblings do.

So, today I just want to say thanks to my siblings, whom I love immensely and am so proud of for all they do, even when we disagree. You make the world a better place and that inspires me in what I do.

*Okay, the other biggest difference is I still don't know how to shoot a gun while she is an expert marksman in ... something... with guns.

Remembering Naraha, one year later

I have avoided dealing with the anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake, but today I feel I have to face the reality. A year and one day ago, I woke up to BBC news discussing the earthquake. I had fallen asleep the night before with the TV on, as I sometimes do when I have trouble sleeping. Inevitably, this backfires as I wake up at a much earlier time in the day than I would without the TV. So, it was around 6.00 or 6.30 when I heard the news talk about a strong earthquake that was affecting Tokyo. I have friends there and decided to stay awake long enough to learn the epicenter. When they said Sendai, I remembered my 23rd birthday celebrations. One of my closest friends Joe and I have birthdays a week apart. That year, we celebrated on his birthday, spending a bitterly cold January night drinking and dancing; the following year, we would do the same in Seoul on my birthday. I had visited temples and gone shopping in Sendai - my goodbye present from my town was a lacquered jewelry box and mirror I picked out in one of the shopping centers there. It was distressing that an earthquake then reported as an 8.7 - later adjusted to a 9.0 - hit so close to my second home. I wondered if there was much damage in Naraha.

I had lived through many an earthquake when I lived in Japan, but none stronger than a 5.0 or so. They lasted a few terrifying seconds, just long enough for me to jump from my bed, run through the small room separating my bedroom and the kitchen, and double-check that I had turned off the stove's gas. Inevitably I had and by the time I got in a doorway, the trembling had stopped. The one time it didn't, some cups had shattered on the ground. No real damage. And, inevitably, in the minutes that followed, I always heard the familiar man's voice come over the loud speaker system in the town: "Tsunami no shinpai wa arimasen." "There is no fear of tsunami."

I didn't always understand everything the town speaker said to me, but tsunami no shinpai wa arimasen, I understood. I was told to listen for it when I first arrived, shortly after being told to turn off the gas in case of an earthquake. I would be safe from tsunami, I was assured, because I was so far up the hill, but I should still listen for the confirmation. I don't remember when BBC told me about the tsunami -- how long had I been sitting in bed waiting for reassurance about the safety of my area? -- but I remember thinking that the loud speaker must be saying something other than "tsunami no shinpai wa arimasen." What does the speaker say when there is a tsunami, I wondered? Would I have even known? Would I have known to drive towards the mountains as quickly as I could? Later, as they showed cars being tossed by the waves that flooded highways north of where I lived, I wondered how many of them were trying to do exactly that. Had they not heard or understood the warning? Did they not have enough time to move away from the shore? When did the warnings come? Or were these the ones who were so used to tsunami warnings that even that did not scare them into action?

I was in Japan for two years, in a tiny town called Naraha. For ten years after leaving Japan, I used to have to tell new friends, "It's about 100 miles northeast of Tokyo; just south of Sendai, if you know where that is?" March 11, 2011, would be the start of a new answer: "I lived where the nuclear crisis is now." Naraha is ten to fifteen km south of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. I used to drive past the plant for Friday nights out in Namie and Futaba and Sunday mornings at church in Ookuma. I passed the Fukushima Daini plant more frequently - whenever I went grocery shopping, or for tea with Maya. The power plants were a part of our daily routine, and yet we rarely noticed them.

When we did notice the power plants - when their presence seemed overwhelming, rather than normal - we discussed the danger of living so near the plants. We discussed the strange cluster of cancer diagnoses in our schools; diagnoses that targeted people we considered much too young to be dealing with such abnormal cancers. Joe, who is Canadian by birth, Maya, a NZ kiwi, and I had grown up learning about the dangers of nuclear power plants. We have one outside of Cleveland, my hometown, but my greatest association with that plant is from the movie Howard the Duck, which is not the most pleasant association. The plant is far enough away that while I know of its presence, I had never seen it other than in the movie. The Fukushima plants - Daiichi and Daini - were my first up-close-and-personal experience with nuclear power. The Japanese in our community, though, regularly assured us that the plant was safe. Nuclear power was safe. It was good for the community. It supplied jobs and clean energy with no risk to the communities around us because of how well-managed it was. When we discussed the plant, Maya, Joe and I wondered how honest these assessments were, how much danger did our communities really face. Yes, the plants paid for our jobs - teaching English at junior high school in three different communities in the same gun (county). And yes, the local economy thrived because of the plant. And yes, the only time we weren't the only Westerners in our towns - and therefore not a principle source of entertainment - was when the plant was visited by GE employees from the US. But, was it safe? Was it worth it? Were the cancers 'normal' or unique? We assumed we were safe - or at least safer than the locals - but was the change in my hair texture (and color, as I found my first grey hair in Japan at the age of 22!) normal? We just were never quite convinced.

I don't remember how long I had been googling "Naraha" in the hopes of learning the state of my town when the news reported that the Fukushima nuclear plants were having trouble. First Daiichi then Daini, then Daiichi again. The power plants closer to Sendai were fine; it was the two located almost halfway between Sendai and Tokyo that were causing the trouble. Some who defended TEPCO in the days after said they couldn't have prepared for a 9.0 earthquake with an 18 foot tsunami. But, the earthquake as it struck the plants was not a 9.0. We were south enough that it was a smaller range. At the time, I believe I read it was around a 6.5-7.0. Still strong, but not the 9.0 that Sendai experienced. As I watched an endless stream of news hoping for more information, I would yell at the TV that Fukushima City was nowhere near the plants and to please tell me which towns were really suffering. Not surprisingly, the reporters did not hear me and would continue to discuss "Fukushima" as if it was a single city rather than a massive prefecture.

My town was evacuated. It is still evacuated. Those who were in the town were forced out quickly. Over the past year, small groups of residents have been occasionally allowed back in to collect a few belongings. The community had initially been evacuated to two different places - Iwaki to the south and Aizumisato to the west - but since people have moved throughout the country. Without a continued town presence, it has been difficult to learn the fates of some of my former students and fellow teachers. I am in contact with some friends still - and all that I have heard from have been fine. But I can't help but wonder about some of my students. Shouta, who I used to sit with every day just so he would do his homework. Or the Shiina family, whose 5th son, Kazumi, was one of my favorites despite his absolute hatred for English. Shinobu's family, who took me to the hospital when I had food poisoning and who used to bring me over for dinners and Japanese conversation. Shinobu's niece should be in middle school about now. How is she? I can ask people I know - and some of my friends are still trying to locate others for me - but as with many natural disaster diaspora, members of the community have been flung about throughout Japan. They do not run into each other at the grocery store, they can't stop by to check in on each other, and they do not necessarily know where their old friends have landed. If they have landed.

It is not just my Naraha. It is all the towns around us. With the exception of Hirono, and potentially Katsurao (which I can't find information on), all towns in Futaba-gun, our county, have been evacuated.

For a few weeks after the earthquake, there was no news coverage of the conditions facing Naraha, or Namie, Tomioka, Hirono, Futaba, or Ookuma. The only news from inside the exclusion zone related to the power plant. In the months since, though, there have been plenty of stories, all equally depressing. It is not the fault of the news reporters that they did not know our beautiful towns when they flourished, but their reporting of the nuclear no-go zone is always depressing. It is empty houses, and beer cans in a flooded vending machine. It is dogs wondering the streets, and bicycles abandoned on the side. "It's hard to believe someone once lived here" a reporter once said about a street that looked like many I had known. It is not so hard when you spent many a day under the cherry blossom trees in Tomioka, on the beach in Naraha, at church in Ookuma, eating sushi in Futaba, or singing karaoke in Namie. It is instead harder to believe that it may be 5 to 30 years before people are living there again.

I had taught English in Naraha for two years as part of a sister-city exchange program. Each day, I woke up, crossed the school's softball and baseball fields - the only thing separating my apartment from the junior high - and entered the front doors greeting almost every one of my students with a "Good morning!" followed by "I am fine, thank you. And you?" It was one of the first things they learned in my first classes. I would take my shoes off and place them in my cubbyhole, putting on my "inside" shoes for the day. I would settle down to my desk across from Katano-sensei or next to Katsumi-sensei and the teacher's assistance would make me green tea. I would flip flash cards, and chit-chat with the other teachers, talking to Kubota-sensei about his most recent trip to Vegas - or his upcoming one, as he went as frequently as he could - and trying surreptitiously to figure out if the rumors about Terashima-sensei's dating another teacher were true. I eventually found out they were. I'd teach a few classes and supervise the students assigned to "cleaning time" in the English classroom. I'd laugh with the students in between classes and after school, telling them once again that No, Joe-sensei was not my boyfriend, even though they had seen me with him in the grocery store last week. And no, neither was Tony-sensei event though we had had ramen together on Friday. And yes, I liked Justin-sensei, but just as a friend, even though we had been spotted by some of his students talking together at the shops on Saturday. I would take my trash to the school's bin as I was instructed to do. I waited until 10pm or so to do it so I didn't run into students on the way. Inevitably, the young, single male teachers would still be "working" as they were expected to do. As often as not, though, this consisted of them sitting around reading the newspaper. They would see me crossing the field and come to the window to say hi, and did I need anything. I didn't, but would make fun of them for "working" so late and tell them to go home to get a life.

On the weekends, I would hop around the gun, running errands, seeing friends, hanging out with Maya and Joe. The city supplied me with a car and insurance so I wasn't tethered to the train schedule to do my grocery shopping (thank goodness!). Since each town in the gun had no more than 2 Westerners permanently present, and we were all English teachers, our students learned the names of the other town's English teachers quite quickly. It never surprised me when a student wearing a Namie junior high uniform - one of Kristin's kids - would come up to me at Tom-Tom, the local mini-mall, and say, "Tara-sensei, do you like baseball?" (pretty much the second thing they learn in junior high English!). "Yes, I like baseball. Do you like baseball" I would reply. They would say, "Yes," giggle, and run away. Maya and Karen's students - they shared two junior high schools between them - would get more bold over the two years and would begin to mimic my own: "Tara-sensei, do you like Joe-sensei?" "Joe-sensei is my friend," I would reply. "Does Maya-sensei like Joe-sensei?" before erupting into more giggles. They really wanted our love lives to be more interesting than they were; but when we were 12-15 years old, didn't we all want to believe our 20-something selves will have really interesting love lives?

I left Naraha in 2002. That was also the first of three years that the Fukushima Daiichi plant stopped operating. The Japanese government had found TEPCO had falsified data reports relating to routine government inspections. The plant's closure ultimately resulted in a huge financial loss for the towns in the gun, which received a lot of tax money from those plants. With the cuts, Naraha to opt out of using teachers from its sister-city, instead opting into the government-run JET program. In 2005, TEPCO reopened the plant, safer and more secure, they assured the public. In 2008, the IAEA told Japan that the Fukushima plants were built with safety standards that were now outdated. Little was done to answer the IAEA's concerns, but a control center that was used in 2011 was added. On February 28, 2011, the Japanese government announced that TEPCO had admitted to submitting fake inspection and repair reports. Amongst the problems was that TEPCO failed to inspect vital infrastructure, including cooling boards. The earthquake hit 11 days after the report's release.

In the year since the earthquake, I have not gone a full week without thinking of my town and the surrounding county. I wonder about the sweet old man who gave me pottery when I visited. I wonder about the kind lady who gave me kiwis at the grocery store on my first day on my own. I think about the countless community members who rode the bus with me to town events, -- like a festival in our intra-prefecture sister-city, Aizumisato, where people would evacuate for a while, -- the ones who taught me traditional Japanese dances and helped me understand what a daruma is. Last night, I had a dream about some of the teachers from Naraha getting together for a picnic under the cherry blossom trees in Tomioka. I don't know if I will ever see or hear about those teachers again, but I will return to Naraha as soon as is practical after the evacuation is terminated. I want to allow the residents to return and settle in without having to worry about me (the people in Naraha would always worry about taking care of me, no matter how long I'd been there or how self-sufficient I had become). Then I'll go back. I'll visit my old school, I'll talk to the new students, and, hopefully, I'll get to see some cherry blossoms.