One of my professors described the way we had gone through the material for our class this way, which apparently is a Chinese saying for having passed by something incredibly quickly. I chose it as the title for today's blogpost because I feel like it captures this semester perfectly. So many beautiful fleeting moments, so much superficial learning, tempting me to go deeper, so much change, in ourselves and in the ever shifting landscape around us. And suddenly it is over. Or rather, beginning. It took me a couple semesters of college for me to realize that the things I learn the most from are self directed adventures, and that is exactly where I am headed for the summer. I have a list of books several pages long that I want to read, and about as many movies to watch and places to visit. I've finally solidified my plans for the summer somewhat, got housing and hopefully an internship, soon to be revealed because I'm superstitious that something will go wrong with it. Interview tomorrow!
Today as usual was a day of crazy contrasts. Writing on final projects, followed by a marathon of classes, and then to a conversation about peasant land struggles in Guatemala, which deeply affected me. There is no such thing as post war in Guatemala: so much of the ongoing violence is directly linked to past processes. I'm sharing the clip below because it needs to be seen and confronted and acted upon. The context of the clip is that a prominent landowner used the police and army to violently evict peasants for their lands, in order to plant biofuels there. A perfect example of how processes are no longer merely local or global.
Here's an article that gives a bit more background on the issue:
http://wilderutopia.com/international-issues/guatemala-biofuels-production-leads-to-violent-evictions/
And after this, I ended up at an insane mall getting ice cream with friends, which was extra weird because I'm pretty sure I hadn't been at a mall since I was back in Chile. It was the sort of place that people in other countries probably imagine when they think about the US: giant sculptures of Bostony themed things, lights, a giant green monster, cute jelly bean decorations. The hyperreal. Even more ironically for someone who's been writing a paper on water provision in developing world cities for what seems like ages, there was a giant over the top fountain show with music and lights. I felt like an overstimulated child.
It's a crazy world we live in. Safer and unsafer everyday. Just depends on what corner of the world you're looking in.
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