to do list

- get new tags for my car/license plate. They expire this month. I have sixty-two hours, I think, before they expire. yikes.

- test out of some more Russian classes (!)

- send a letter to my family overseas. I'm testing the international postal system. I'll let you know how it goes, maybe.

- get some sleep

- turn my clocks back on Saturday night. I called my parents on Saturday (meaning, last week), and they, in a very responsible, parent-ish way, told me to make sure and turn my clock back that night. At which point I googled "daylight savings" or something to prove to them that while the Russians may switch their clocks back in October, the Americans decided to save energy this year and wait til November.

- take pictures of the changing leaves on campus. This is very slowly but somewhat surely happening. Fall is finally here. I like red and orange trees.

obscure

In July I took off my watch. Since then I have not worn anything on my left wrist, ever. Actually, I took my watch off in May for Summer Conference in Florida. I proceeded to suffer a sun burn to the wrist (that skin hadn't seen the sun in years, after all). Then I put on a watch for the month of June while I was in DC. But since that finished I have been watch-free. I declare my absolute addiction to time: broken.

Why was I addicted to knowing what time it is, anyway? I'd worn a watch every day, all day (yes, I wore it while I slept, too. why bother taking it off? plus, what if I wake up and want to know what time it is?) since I was about 10. My only conclusion is that I'm somewhat of a control freak. And actually, I don't think not wearing a watch has helped that, though it does feel good to answer the what time is it question with an honest "I have no idea." How freeing.

Anyway. So I'm addicted to time and lack of sleep. That's pretty terrible. But yeah, in other news, I think what I'm NOT addicted to anymore is current events. And that's sort of terrible too, incidentally. But ever since getting back from D.C. I have completely lost interest in domestic politics and most news in general. Kind of sad. Maybe the month of June was a bit of an overdose. And I'm still recovering.

I feel like lately I've had a lot on my mind. My head is sort of bursting. Oh, I think that's kind of weird. Sorry.

Here are some quotes I read today, in various contexts:
"Write as you speak and read as it is written." - Vuk Karadzic, Serbian linguist and reformer of the Serbian language
"To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map." - William Carey
"In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been." - Robert Moffat
"My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell." - Simon and Garfunkel, "Cloudy"

lost in transliteration

В этот момент, мне очень хочется куда-то уехать. Мне так надоела Америка. Может быть...в Африку?

an exercise

Things I'm thankful for:

- my family
- RUF and everything/everyone that goes along with that
- my roommates
- our house, which is clean as of today
- my own room
- Skype
- internet
- sleep
- my church
- pictures
- modern conveniences
- airplanes and all that they represent
- mountains
- my childhood
- community
- I would say I'm thankful for my bike but there's been an unfortunate incident which precludes the use of that pronoun...

oh, and those are probably out of order.

conflict, climax, resolution

I am a recovering addict. The addiction: staying up late. Conflict: I have stuff I want or need to do, I waste time, and end up doing it until all hours of the night. Climax: a few weeks ago I was up till 6 writing a paper due the next day. I had had the assignment for at least a week or two. I resolved to change my life around. Resolution: well, I try to go to bed earlier. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like most rehabilitating addicts, I sometimes have relapses. But one step of my self-prescribed program has been to keep a log of when I go to sleep and when I get up. I figured maybe I could shame myself into earlier bedtimes. Has it worked? judge for yourself - here is a week's worth of sleep patterns:

10/12/07 2:36 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.
10/13/17 1:54 a.m. - 9:31 a.m.
10/14/07 1:09 a.m. - 8:05 a.m.
10/15/07 12:12 a.m. - 6:33 a.m.
10/16/07 11:44 p.m. - 9:45 a.m.
10/17/07 4:09 a.m. - 8:52 a.m.
10/18/07 2:07 a.m. - 8:20 a.m.
10/19/07 12:58 a.m. - 12:26 p.m.

I had a beautiful pattern going for five days running - each day to bed earlier than the last, even getting to sleep once in the P.M. THEN, I had the midterms. So that's a relapse. But the twelve hours last night helped, I think.

So there you have it, my friends. I need help. But I'm getting there...

facts and photo

Yugoslav History plus Wednesday nights are going to be the death of me, i think. I have two midterms tomorrow. I'm trying to study. It's hard. I'm getting tired.

This is the background on my computer. It's about a year old, but they are so cute.

when the sun doesn't rise

Last night Amanda and I decided we wanted to watch the sun rise this morning. So, I checked my computer. The trusty World Wide Web promised the rising of the sun into a clear sky at 7:36 a.m. So. My alarm went off at 6:33. We biked in the dark to the football stadium where Amanda persuaded a maintenance man to unlock a gate for us. We climbed up the bleachers and were ready. Go ahead, sun. Rise.

Except.

It's foggy. The sky is clear and all, but there's a thick mist resting on the horizon. We thought it might lift or evaporate, but if anything, it thickened. So we watched the sky lighten, but the sun really didn't do the rising part. At least not observably. It just sort of appeared much later on.

So after a long while of waiting in the chilly semi-darkness, we decided we were okay with it not being a brilliant breathtaking sunrise. We left the stadium, got hot chocolate, and sat outside until the clock hit a humane hour. Then we went on with our lives.

But I'm not disappointed. Getting up early now and again is a fun thing. The early hours feel very efficient, energetic and refreshing. I've been awake for eleven hours already today. I feel at least a tiny bit more productive. Now a few pictures.

waiting...

coming to the stadium and NOT seeing the sunrise is actually a little awkward:

speaking of awkward, Amanda ran ahead of me and I think told me to take pictures. I'm not sure what was going on...

after all that, this is the best I and my little blue camera could come up with

food therapy

This week was International Food week at small group. So, I signed up to bring Uzbek plov.

As an aside, I've been feeling a little homesick recently, so it was fun to make food from what used to be my home. Thus the post title.

So, enough words. On with the pictorial step-by-step:

a terrible picture of me, but can you sense the excitement?

first ingredient: chopped carrots. It actually takes a while to chop them like this:

onions

garlic

rice, of course (it IS asia, after all):

a key ingredient: a package of plov seasoning, hand-delivered from the motherland itself. Thanks to sister for the gift. I think there's cumin in it. and...other stuff

recommended ingredient: a KAZAN to cook it in. This is a traditional Central Asian piece of kitchenware. Also brought over. We only had two 70-lb. bags each, but we couldn't leave the kazans.

the garlic was proving very photogenic

it's cooking!

the finished product.

after I stirred it up to distribute the meat (traditionally lamb, but I used beef)and carrots.


It was so good! I am happy. It turned out well, even though it was my first time making it on my own. I would recommend clicking the last one to enlarge and fully appreciate the beauty...

i feel evil

This week is homecoming week.

i'm not sure of the details, but apparently there was some sort of sidewalk chalk-drawing competition today out on the sidewalk in front of the library. I was trying to get to class and there were hordes of people milling around watching the chalking.

there were also hordes of people working on the pictures. These were pretty involved, complex, time-consuming creations.

as I walked by, the first thing that came to my mind was,

"I hope it rains tonight."

the weather is here, wish you were beautiful

as my dad would say.

But it's partly cloudy, eighty degrees here in Norman. A beautiful day. Good for bike riding. I've ridden to campus and back twice already, and will do so again tonight. Today is a good day to be outside.

So I took a couple pictures around my neighborhood. There is not much to see. Oklahoma is good at big, blue skies. We didn't get those in Kazakhstan cause they were full of mountains. There's something to be said for mountains....


classic Oklahoma. Not. Much. There.


I rode down Sooner Drive. Trying to keep up the school spirit here.

other brother

Seventeen years ago my brother J.D. Schupack was born in Karachi, Pakistan. His birthday is the tenth, tomorrow, but it's that there now. When he was born at 2 am, my dad called his mom in Michigan and told her that her grandson was born "tomorrow." Oh, time zones.

So. He is turning seventeen, all on his own in Sewanee, Tennessee. He even has a midterm to celebrate. Oh, school. I thought maybe I could brighten your day, bro, with a super-embarrassing picture. I do my best. But I made sure it was (a terrible) one of myself as well to alleviate (as much as possible) the embarrassment.

Well. Um. Happy Birthday. I hope it's a good one. I'm (sort of) sorry I can't be there. But always remember you're my favorite non-autistic brother, no matter how old you are. Hm. Not to be too insensitive or inappropriate, though.

See you in two months, yeah? Buy your plane ticket.

ownership

A little over a year ago, when I came to OU, I was not extremely happy to be here. We don't have to talk about why.

OU was not my school. It was where I went to school. The football team was over-worshiped, overrated, and most definitely not "my team." I could not understand speaking of football games in terms of what "we" had accomplished. "You were not out on the field playing!" I wanted to tell people that spoke like that. Kind of like when people talk about "us" winning or fighting wars. You are not in the army. You were not alive back then. Kind of like when people talk about slavery in terms of "us" and "them." You weren't alive back then. You are not and were not either a slaveowner or a slave. That's why I don't like the culture of apologizing and recompensing for generations-old wrongs.

But I've come a ways - in some ways - in a year. I like being at OU. And "we" definitely beat Texas today. That's one thing I'll take ownership of.

artificiality

My roommate Carolyn's birthday was September 3rd. For her party her mom made some queso, the leftovers of which we took home. We are not very good at eating leftovers, so it just sat in our fridge.

For a long time.

Eventually, I figured it would be really gross and I didn't want to deal with it so I just left it in the fridge that much longer. Well, just now I braved it and opened the container. The queso looked and smelled exactly as it did 32 days ago. I am disturbed.

Several things have gone bad in our fridge already (see aforementioned leftover problem). The container was not super-airtight. Even if it was. What is in that stuff to make it last so long???

Ew.

oddity

I spent my formative years overseas. So did my music tastes. This country overseas was quite out of touch with mainstream American culture. Thus am I. In some ways this has been a good thing, and in some ways bad. I'm glad for my life story, but it can result in social complications. I'm not going to go into all of them right now.

But one of them is music. I came back to the US and had sixteen years of popular music to catch up on. That's a lot. So I just didn't. I'm very much clueless when it comes to music. Even though my dad was a professional musician. The only effect that had was to inundate me with jazz and classical music growing up and to make me feel guilty about not practicing piano more. But I'm getting sidetracked. So, I came back to the States and had no clue what to listen to or what was popular. And I still have very little.

I'm usually okay with being clueless about pop culture stuff. And for the most part this is the case here. But not always. I have very vague music tastes right now. I pretty much listen to anything. But I'm really insecure about the music that I like. I don't mind telling people I like Russian and Chechen pop (cause they've never heard it and wouldn't understand it), or classical and jazz (you can't go wrong there. They are not cool but are also not not cool). So that part is all right. Not anything else though. Too often I feel that I will be judged by the kind of music I like.

So I dodge the question. I don't tell people what kind of music I like. I get anxious, then tell them I'll listen to anything. But I have a growing music collection. I hide it, mostly.