Penciled names and utter dark

I saw your ghost today on the 7 train.

It was as if time and space had rearranged to age you 20 years and place you in front of me.

You were standing there, wearing your faded gray jacket and your trademark jeans. You were holding two shopping bags from stores that I couldn't discern, and you looked haggard and withdrawn. Your face was a study in cynicism, your eyes a betrayal of youth.

It was mesmerizing. It was all I could do to not stare. By the time I disembarked and transferred to the D train, I was shaken but still composed. But as soon as I sat down, your ghost sat down across from me, your bags placed neatly between your feet.

And there it was again as I transferred to the A train. And again to the F train.

Now I was convinced I was insane. I fished out my phone to sneak a picture of the ghost, just so I could look at it later and convince myself it wasn't you. Even as I took the picture, I found myself staring into the screen, entranced by the resemblance.

When I reached my destination, I strode out of the train and up the stairs with an urgency that surprised me. I made it halfway down a long, barren, white tile hallway before looking back, just to see if the ghost was behind me.

There was no one.

Now, hours later, I look at the picture I took on my phone. It's too blurry for me to make out specific facial features, but I am just as speechless.

I may never know if you were actually ever in Manhattan and making your way to Brooklyn on this brisk May evening... but I know I still miss you.

Bereft in my stilted repose

They say that sometimes you don't recognize greatness until it has passed.

Wow. I was so caught up in the craziness of Winter Conference that I didn't fully comprehend the gravity of what was going on around me. I was frantically making copies of an agenda for legislation without realizing that I was making copies for the first AIESEC US legislation in years. I was counting MCP election ballots without realizing that this right and privilege was denied for nearly a decade.. I was working closely with Missy, an amazing individual who I will probably never work with again. The same thing goes for nearly everyone else on the conference team. Fuck, I didn't get to know the PAI as well as I could have either.


Wow. What a way to usher in 2009.

Bathed in warmth

For the first time in almost a week I was able to smell the cheap air freshener in my bathroom. I don't think I've ever been quite so happy to be able to use that sense in that room.

I've had a head cold since about Wednesday last week, and as the weekend began my sinuses completely clogged up. I spent the weekend eating bland food and coughing up phlegm, completely squandering my fall break. But now, yay!

In other news, I feel inexplicably happy. Not much else to say about it than that, but since this doesn't happen very often, I thought I should record it for posterity.

Apparently no one has applied for my VP position yet. It's disappointing, but I'm not going to freak out over it. Don't misunderstand, I care, but I'm not about to create undue stress for myself. I don't know what's going to happen if the deadline passes and no one applies, but I'll cross that hurdle when it comes. I suppose I could track people down and harangue them mercilessly to apply, but that's not something I'm comfortable doing. I honestly don't believe that it leaves a good impression, no matter how you do it, and if I don't believe in it, then it won't be successful because it will be written all over my face.

Meh, we shall see.

On a final note, I got this fortune cookie yesterday.
"You would make a good lawyer."

Some subtle memory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuJP9sC9bxQ

Every time I hear this I think of Morocco and all of its crazy shenanigans...

This one's dedicated to the MENA region, Rabat, and especially Rachid and his car.

Plot the course

So I'm trying something new this time. Usually when I write these I somehow lose focus or interest before finishing and I invariably wind up either going through my entire list of bookmarks or flipping on the TV. With that in mind, I've literally hidden both my mouse and remote control on the other side of the room. Maybe I'll get more than a few lines down this time.

It's been several weeks since Morocco now. I'm a bit ambivalent about finally writing this so late after-the-fact. Other things have arisen which have clouded my memory of that wondrous event. But then again, I imagine that the really important things, the truly memorable things... they would have survived the gauntlet of short term memory.

So where to begin? Perhaps with the beginning. But to make things interesting, I'll lump in the ending too. The flights were relatively uneventful, for the most part. Security was what I pretty much expected it to be too. All three of us got pulled aside in Atlanta for a thorough check, but it was pretty routine and I'm convinced it was legitimately random. Emily got to give an elevator speech about AIESEC to her security officer and I actually found out that my guy has a girlfriend in AIESEC in South Africa. At least that's what I think... he might've thought I said something else. But meh, it doesn't matter. Paris security was pretty relaxed. I felt bad for the woman in front of us at one point though. She had gotten duty-free alcohol at some point and hadn't had a chance to stash it in her checked luggage... and they made her ditch it at the international flight security check point in CDG airport. It was pretty ridiculous, but I guess there's no way around it. I thought it would've been awesome to just pop it open right there in the security line and start a Nordic circle with everyone there, minus the chant at the end of course. I told her in passing to open the bottle, take a swig, and pass it back in the line. The other Americans in the line grinned at me, so I guess it wasn't just me that had the idea. Security back into the States was a nightmare though. The safety color code thing was at orange or whatever for Atlanta, D.C., and Cincinnatti, so we had to wait in a million more lines and jump through a million more hoops. At one point in Paris they even ran background checks on us. It was all a blur though, I spent the first 60% of the trip home hung over and sleeping it all off. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm going to jump to somewhere in the middle now. This was the third night of the conference, and the OC had set up a party on the beach. The prep for this night was the epitome of ridiculous if there ever was one, because they were worried about outsiders showing up to the event. More security issues, right? So anyway, they had us line up by country delegation like they make you do in elementary school. Then the OC, Facis, and Moroccan delegation linked hands and formed a human circle around us. I shit you not. Then this human circle led us like a herd of sheep the quarter mile down to the beach. The point was that anyone not inside the human circle didn't belong at the event, which I guess sounded good in theory. However, the problem... was that the circle moved at different speeds at different spots. Remember, this circle had to encapsulate at least 200 people, so it was rather large. Eventually the circle started to break in certain places, leading to people having to join the circle to patch up the tears. I myself got sucked into it. But eventually it just completely dissolved, but we were within steps from the sand already anyway. And then there it was... the Moroccan beach. They really went all-out for it. There was a bonfire and the dance floor thing was set up on the sand with (apparently) a famous DJ there to spin for us. I looked up at the moon... and it was truly spectacular.

I couldn't help but be amazed that I had actually traveled further than the horizon I had seen countless times back on those beaches in Florida. And of course, it was AIESEC that brought me there. I'd gone to so many new places and done so many new things since my Florida years, but this felt like the capstone achievement of that part of my life. For some reason, somehow, being there on the beach at midnight at the other side of the ocean gave me some closure that I hadn't realized I had been lacking. Even now, I can't describe exactly what that closure entailed. The realization that I was beginning a new chapter in life felt surreal. There was a sense of anxiety but also a sense of calm. It was distressing to be confronted with "what-ifs" once again, but there was subtle comfort in knowing that things had worked themselves out without me even being aware of it. I was once again left with the questions of "What do I do now?" and "Where do I go from here?" But this time... it felt like a challenge.

So yeah. I didn't exactly share this magic moment with the rest of the delegation. It was kind of cheating, because in reality, it had very little to do with the general sentiment of the MENA region. But in all honesty, no one has an attention span long enough for all of that. Not during plenary... hah.

After the conference, we spent the night in Mohammedia with friends of Emily's family. Great people, true testiments to hospitality. It was a little awkward though, because I'm always left feeling guilty when my hosts treat me as well as I had been treated. Not to mention the strange hygiene products they had in their bathroom. One was apparently Chinese, but had been badly translated into English. One of the words used was "horniness". It was shampoo.

Afterwards, we took the train to Rabat and got completely screwed with the ferry to Spain. There was no way we would be able to make it to the city we needed to be at. So we ended up shelling out all this extra money in order to fly from Casablanca to Barcelona. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We spent a great day in Rabat just walking around with Rachid and some other Moroccans and a couple token Tunisians. Too much happened there for me to talk about. I bought a silver ring though! It has one of those rotating centers. Apparently Maddie got the exact same one. Great minds think alike, eh?

Crisis averted, we made it into Spain. However, it would cost us even more money and more time to get from Barcelona to Valencia. We had originally planned to spend a full day with Preston. But as it turns out, we spent that whole day in transit: Rabat to Casablanca, Casablanca to Barcelona, Barcelona to Valencia. When we finally arrived, we had a mere six hours before we had to be at the airport to return home. And to top it off, poor Emily had her backpack stolen in the Barcelona train station. Preston found us, though, and good times (and donner kabob) were had. We went to this bar where I apparently drank a few too many cocktails and made a complete fool of myself.

I realize my anecdotes are getting more and more vague and curt. Blame it on the attention span.

Let's see. What's left for me to ramble about... ah yes, that's right... nothing. Well I'm sure there's something, but therein lies the flaw with spending too much time on the most significant thing. Invariably you end up forgetting about everything else. At least that's what happens with me.

Maybe I'll be able to write more about this later.