This blog might be all over the place, so I apologize in advance. I have a lot of time to think here in Fiji and the thoughts that run through my head, man they're all over.

It's so bizarre that we who choose to do this whole Peace Corps thing just stop these lives we have in the US, most of us with really privileged lives. And for two years we're living in another country. I'm totally helpless most days, depending on the kind of kindness of strangers that I didn't even know still existed outside of movies and novels. But it does! And here we are, learning and re-learning all these things, all these cultural and emotional and built up characteristics of life. I don't know why turning 25 seems really old, really different. My friends are growing up- are already grown up. They're married and have houses and really really serious relationships and are getting laid off. I'm running around Fiji living in a bamboo house and swimming in the ocean. I have absolutely no clue what I want to do when I get back to the US. I used to know, but now I have no clue. I think I was just biding time. I hope in the next year something will change, will happen that will be the lightbulb, the finger snap that will set the rest of my life on some kind of course. Maybe it's just that our lives are so broadcast over the computer now it seems like we have so many possibilities, so many opportunities to question our lives and re-examine everything and everyone. This again leads me to believe I need to detach myself from Facebook.

I'm reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance right now and maybe I'm just thinking about the whole issue of technology. Something like Facebook is in a whole new technological dimension separate even from computers. Oh man though the computers are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slow here in Fiji. It drives me absolutely nuts. Nuts!

I was in Suva a couple weeks ago for a workshop. Man I hate being in Suva. There's something about being in a city here that I don't like, but I do miss city life in the US. But does Madison really count for a city?? It does. The really nice thing for me was to see all the other Volunteers that I haven't seen for so long. I realized that I miss them and I need them. I need that touch with, for me, reality outside the village. It felt good to be so unrestrained and honest and to relate to other PCVs. I tend to stay in my village a lot. I have this fear about leaving it!

That said, let me talk about dancing. Fijian dancing is very different than American dancing, or at least Midwestern dancing. There's no Alicia head shaking, no booty shaking. There is the traditional "meke" dance but then there is the "waltz" or the "jive." That's what dancing is called- the waltz. It involves a lot of thumbs up, finger pointing, shoulder rolling, and leg twisting. And it's also very 1 on 1; group dancing doesn't really fly here. It's a very orderly dancing.

I made my way up the coast a bit for the first time on Sunday, to go to an Assemblies of God service. Wow. It was great! There's a church I could get into, except that they don't drink grog or alcohol and have all these other taboos. I'm not down with churches telling people how to live. That said, this was an inspirational service in this small church, very haphazardly built but with two guitarists who belted out English language hymns beautifully and we danced and clapped. Very energetic, and very interactive. However, I discovered the resort that is being built along the coast. It depressed me and made me cry. I know I'm just being selfish in that I don't want Fiji to lose the character and innocence it has. I feel like the land is really just being pillaged by greedy businessmen and their skinny fad dieting pale snotty wives. Okay, maybe I'm a little harsh. But you have to look at the kind of person who razes a forest and mangrove swamp and builds these godawful ugly massive "villas."

That's all my ranting for now. Other than that things are going well in the village.

I think I'm just scared ev erything will be so different in the US when I go back.