I’m finally over my weeklong season-shifting illness but my allergies have come out of hibernation due to the simultaneous blooming of every plant in Nepal, leaving me a sniffling, sneezing wreck. I have always ranked spring as my least favorite season for this reason and Nepal unfortunately offers no reprieve from the widespread allergens in North Carolina. All of the roads are being widened around Shehrish’s home, which means countless buildings and homes are being toppled, leaving the air with an acrid tinge of concrete and dust. I still run almost every day but the air is becoming unbearable. Sneezing out grayish-black colors cannot be healthy; suffice it to say I look forward to the clean air of the USA.
Tomorrow marks my last week at the school and I am sad that my tenure will be over as I really enjoy the job and the children that I teach. I have done my best too not get attached to the kids but still feel like I will miss them dearly. My public speaking abilities will be put to the test on Friday as I have been named the MC of the school’s sports day, with all of the Harry Potter-like houses competing in marching and races. I’m worried as to how I will perform as I’ve never had to speak extemporaneously for so long and American humor doesn’t always translate. I YouTubed some track and field coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to try and get a better feel for how to do it. Fortunately if I bomb I won’t have to return and be made fun of by children.
I’ve done my best to stay up to date with all things America while gone and have closely followed TV, politics, sports and music. It’s been interesting to observe things without really talking to anybody about them and I’m curious to see how my perceptions match up with reality. I think most people get a better understanding of events/stories from bouncing thoughts off of other people and I have been unable to do so while in Nepal, only being able to provide my laughable interpretations of Hindi film and music to my friends. Below are my thoughts on what I perceive to be currently relevant in America. Oh, and I don’t really watch movies but did see about an hour of the academy awards this year, taking away two things: Billy Crystal got really bad botox and Billy Crystal is no longer funny (was he ever?)
TV:
I have heard the most about Game of Thrones and Walking Dead from the internets throughout the last year and am currently halfway through the former. The medieval fantasy genre never really appealed to me; I do like Lord of the Rings but found the movies a bit monotonous until I read the trilogy. I don't know if it’s the antiquated English or the seemingly endless horseback jaunts through forests but anything medieval usually sets my brain into full-blown ADD mode. My initial impression of Game of Thrones is that it feels like fan fiction written by a sixteen year old whose primary interests in life are fantasy RPG's, movies chock full of gratuitous violence like Braveheart and 300 and explicit pornography. *Spolier Alert* Over the first six episodes I have witnessed a horse decapitation, an eight year old being breastfed and Tommy Carcetti from The Wire ‘tutoring’ a pair of prostitutes while metaphorically musing on the meaning of life. It's safe to say that I don't really see the appeal to anyone over twenty. I might give Walking Dead another chance when I run out of other things to watch but was bored after the first three episodes. I need more than zombie gore to stay entertained.
Breaking Bad and Mad Men are both fantastic (I've written about them previously) but another current show that I'm completely in on is Homeland. I recently got the first season on my hard drive and plowed through the first eight episodes in a couple of evenings. Internet piracy let me down for the first time in over a year as the torrent I got only has two thirds of the season, but the remaining four are nearly downloaded and I can't wait to finish it. I would recommend Homeland to anybody that I know.
Politics:
Ugh. Being abroad for the last year has further opened my eyes to the widespread banality of the American political climate. It's impossible to get a neutral read on anything from the American media as every major news source seems firmly locked on partisan reporting; reading the same story on Drudge/HuffPost is like night and day and the 'bipartisan' sources are just as bad. I've sworn off following the tit for tat red herring talking points from both the left and right but am shocked that this Trayvon Martin story has become politicized. I have no idea what really happened, as every story is painted entirely different from the next. I guess anything can be looked at as a potential upswing in the polls but twisting this story feels like a new low. I don't keep up with polling numbers but it feels like Obama is a stone cold lock for a second term. The assortment of GOP candidates that showed up for this race makes John Kerry from '04 seem as likable as Kennedy or Reagan. It would be nice for a sensible republican to emerge and for political discourse to take a turn toward a more civilized path but I expect the rhetoric from both sides to only heighten and for Barack to limp in to a second term. I wasted a lot of energy on politics in 2008 and will never do it again. Call me a rube, but following American politics is no different than following a bad soap opera, from Weinergate to whore/slutgate to Birthergate and all of the other 'gates' I'm forgetting. Four more years..
Sport:
I've watched primarily soccer, definitely not American at all. But how much do people love the NFL right now? Following other American sports during the NFL season was almost impossible due to the nonstop, ad nauseam coverage of NFL and Tim Tebow. I always casually follow NCAAF but only remember Alabama beating LSU this year. Even during the offseason the NFL has dominated the headlines. It almost feels blasphemous to admit that I don't care about the NFL as much anymore and haven't for the last few seasons. The regular season is a back and forth chess match between good teams and the playoffs feel more and more like a crap shoot, with whomever throwing hot winning the Super Bowl (see the NYG, who won this year as something like 25-1 underdogs). I loosely followed baseball but only remember the Tigers making a run and St. Louis winning it all. I have kept pretty good tabs on the NBA but only really know the Knicks; StarWorld India shows three Knicks games a week and one random game. I knew about Jeremy Lin before most when he would pay garbage time minutes and remember commenting to Shehrish how weird it must be for an Asian American Harvard grad to mesh with NBA players. The Knicks are pretty brutal to watch all of the time but the overall talent in the league is amazing right now. LBJ, Rose, Durant, Westbrook and CP3 all make me giddy.
Music:
I don't have much to say as I don't really keep up with anything mainstream, but I have gotten back into rap over the last year and am really into Drake and Lil Wayne. My last dance with rap was when I was 12-13 years old, listening to DMX yell and bark at me and 2Pac giving instructions on how to be a thug. I guess not much has changed in terms of how I can appreciate rap but I'm more drawn to it now for its cleverness instead of the shock value. I have grown weary of almost everything on my 8 GB iPod over the last year, especially The Beatles. I could go the rest of my life with no Beatles and be perfectly fine. When I get back I'm replacing everything that isn't rap except for Sigur Rós, Explosions in the Sky and maybe Radiohead. Let me in if you're listening to anything new that's good as I'm completely out of touch with the music scene.
Two more weeks in Nepal and then I’m back to the States. Nepali friends in the USA, contact me if you need or want anything from Kathmandu. I’ll have space in my luggage. Go Wildcats, Kidd-Gilchrist is my man.
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