Neil in Zim: A hodge podge of thoughts

I finished My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and it was truly something else. I really can’t remember a single thing that happened except that the unnamed narrator kept trying to go to sleep. I’ve been feeling a lot like the narrator lately, not the parts where she is rich and abuses prescription drugs, but the part where she just wants to sleep but gets disturbed or distracted in the process.

The students are back on campus, but not all faculty are back, which means that the TAs have been knocking at my door at ungodly hours (translation: really reasonable hours that I should be awake for) asking for help with different tasks - mainly using the printer and helping with sick students. I am “on-duty” until all the faculty return on Labor Day. The hours are 8:00am-10:30pm, and I “should” be visible to students at all times. Sometimes another faculty member will be in the office, so I take short breaks in my room, but I am honestly unsure what being “on duty” means. Rest days are on Sundays, but they hardly feel restful.

Sunday mornings feel like I am sitting across from Sigma Nu on a warm afternoon during Spring Quarter – music is blasting just a little too loud and people are cheering. Except instead of random men playing that beer die game and listening to Travis Scott, a local church boasts an electric keyboard with churchgoers singing gospels and hymns for several hours, loud enough that you can hear it across the valley. I imagine the act of going to church to be similar to standing on The Row, fraternizing. Individuals gather to engage in activities that bring them closer to one another – food and drinks are shared, celebratory remarks can be made, and community is built. Though fraternity brothers aren’t actively evoking Jesus unless I heavily misunderstood the point of Greek life. Although I didn’t enjoy watching SNU boys perform outside their house, there was something about their ritual that I found compelling. Their incessant inability to wear shirts while tour guides passed their house, however, is unforgivable. To forgive them would mean accepting the fact that there is no hope for a better past - that’s what Chris would say. I am not sure I fully understand what that means, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I find getting over things to be challenging because I am stubborn – I think can hold a grudge until death. But lately I’ve realized that it’s exhausting to keep resentment inside because at the end of the day, nothing is that deep. There’s no way I can control what others do, say, think or feel, but the only thing I can change is how I perceive situations and what I can do to adjust my own frame of mind. I finally think I understand what Sandy Bullock meant when said that she wishes for world peace in Miss Congeniality – there’s nothing better than coming to peace with others and yourself. If there is anything good about Sundays, it’s that when I am awoken by loud church music before my alarm, I can reflect.

Mindy Kaling spends a long time talking about what working at The Dalton School would be like as a Latin teacher in her book Why Not Me?. She fantasizes about throwing a small party and sends an email to the faculty email list, only to receive unsavory comments for utilizing the email list regarding non-professional matters. I am not sure why I brought this up only to say that I feel like it would be terrible to work at a rich, private prep school where other teachers are stuck-up and parents are entitled to emailing teachers about their poor grade that will jeopardize their chance of being admitted to Yale. Though I would enjoy attending an office/faculty party with Mindy.

The first day of term 3 is on Labor Day, and I’ve been slowly preparing by creating syllabi and calendars, lecture slides, problem sets, projects, and other assignments. I’m teaching Research Methods to lower sixes (11th grade), co-teaching Capstone for upper sixes (12th grade), and also starting up a music theory elective. The next few months until December are going to be busy, but I am hoping I can still balance work with self-care, something that I found challenging to do in college when I was working in clinic. Michael, one of the other fellows, talked about doing things on the African continent that you can only do here; and while I hope to do that, I am worried that I’m going to be stuck in the campus bubble. His advice reminds me of a conversation I had with my overseas scholarship advisor about the idea of must. Why must I go to Africa for a fellowship? Why is there no other option for me and what specifically about Zim do I want to engage with? I still don’t have an answer to either of those questions, but I am starting to realize that time is limited, and I this may be the only time when I’m on the continent for an extended period. Lucy would also bring up urgency if she was reading this, but I have not been feeling extremely urgent lately.

I’m hoping to get into gardening, I used to grow basil in my first-year room until it died. There is a garden at the back of the school with its own irrigation system – a lot of the vegetables we eat at lunch and supper come straight from there. In the summertime (starts October), baboons lurk around the garden because food is scarce, but luckily there are two scarecrows in the garden. One of the scarecrows wears a Lululemon bag as a shirt, and the baboons are terrified. But after a few weeks, the baboons learn that the scarecrows are not alive, so they sit on-top of the scarecrows playing patty-cake – allegedly.

One of the big confusions for a lot of people here is my racial/ethnic identity, though that was also true in the states. Though I constantly tell people that I am American, there is still a lot of uncertainty. In particular, the assumption here is that folks from the states are White, which I evidently am not. When I tell people I am South Asian, but grew up in the states, I still get a lot of questions because most people have generations of families in Zim – immigration to a new country and being 1st gen/2nd gen is less common. In the Shona language, however, there are only two races: Black and White (this needs to be fact checked). So, I am White here.

I’ve been having this recurring dream over the past few months about getting into an elevator with unstable floors, being trapped, and not being able to get to where I need to go. I am not sure what it means, but if you are a Freud enthusiast, feel free to interpret and let me know. I think it might have something to do with the fear of instability in my life, but I don’t think I feel that. Vivek told me to do things that fear me the most – but he also said that I should consider scrapbooking because I have too many thoughts. I think right now what fears me the most is trying to understand the meaning behind some of Lady Gaga’s music videos. People say that her music videos were ahead of her time, but I still don’t think we’ve reached the point of time where we can understand what she meant in them.

Specifically, her late 2000’s and early 2010’s music baffles me, but there’s something about it that is addictive. Her music is catchy and profound – when she said “where are my keys? I lost my phone,” in Just Dance, I completely understood her. This year, I don’t misplace my things including my keys and phone, but maybe I do need to detach from my phone. I feel like I’m on it all the time trying to document life, either through photos or in my notes app. I can be in the middle of an elephant chase, but will likely take out my phone in an attempt to livestream it.

Things that don’t make sense to non-Apple Watch users:

Knowing the exact details of your friends’ workouts, even though they are across the world from you
Slapping of the wrist
Randomly standing up in the middle of the day to “reach my stand goal”