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Mar. 13th, 2011 02:16 pmI can just hear the skeptics go: oh how cute! how naive! get it out of your system, kid, sure, go, pretend to be useful!
Frankly, I really don't give a damn as it is my life and my world. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to (c)
I actually rather agree with miss Abby; my reasoning for joining goes along the same lines:
So currently I'm reading a book called "The Assassins Gate" loaned and recommended to me by my good friend and fellow Moroccan PCV, Xavier. It's written by a journalist named George Packer. It's about the lead up to the war in Iraq.
HERE IS MY POINT: Originally when Xavier loaned me the book, he had mentioned that a particular passage captured well why he joined the Peace Corps. While reading some of it this morning during my coffee/breakfast/book/bed/sunshine ritual I, by coincidence, picked out the same passage that had a resounding truth as to why I joined Peace Corps as well, though for different reasons.
Here's the particular passage from the chapter titled "Memorial Day":
"After years of sustained assault on the idea of collective action, there was no ideological foundation left on which Bush could have stood up and asked what Americans could do for their country. We weren't urged to study Arabic, to join the foreign service or international aid groups, to develop alternative sources of energy, to form a national civil reserve for emergencies.... Perhaps it was a shrewd political read on Bush's part-- a recognition that Americans, for all their passion after September 11, would inevitably slouch back on their sofas. It seemed fair to ask, though, how a body politic as out of shape as ours was likely to make it over the long, hard slog of wartime... So the months after September 11 were a lost opportunity- to harness the surge of civic energy."
So this says that post 9/11 Americans weren't urged to do all these collective pursuits for their country, but what I see in this is that, although it's not the norm, we (me and other like minded PCVolunteers)are doing these things. why? To take some kind of action-- to do something that may actually mean something. Although our generation seems to manifest senses of self-entitlement and egotism, these give us the confidence to actually enter the world and try to do something meaningful because we believe we are actually capable of having an effect on it all.
So, we will continue to try and call it Thriving (not just surviving) because we hope that's what it is. And we will reflect when we're ancient (our 40s...just kidding!) and a little jaded-- and hope that we were right.
http://abbylamarocaine.blogspot.com/
high on tiger blood and winning :)
_______
the language I may be speaking soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTk88g0f38o
ебануться!
Frankly, I really don't give a damn as it is my life and my world. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to (c)
I actually rather agree with miss Abby; my reasoning for joining goes along the same lines:
So currently I'm reading a book called "The Assassins Gate" loaned and recommended to me by my good friend and fellow Moroccan PCV, Xavier. It's written by a journalist named George Packer. It's about the lead up to the war in Iraq.
HERE IS MY POINT: Originally when Xavier loaned me the book, he had mentioned that a particular passage captured well why he joined the Peace Corps. While reading some of it this morning during my coffee/breakfast/book/bed/sunshine ritual I, by coincidence, picked out the same passage that had a resounding truth as to why I joined Peace Corps as well, though for different reasons.
Here's the particular passage from the chapter titled "Memorial Day":
"After years of sustained assault on the idea of collective action, there was no ideological foundation left on which Bush could have stood up and asked what Americans could do for their country. We weren't urged to study Arabic, to join the foreign service or international aid groups, to develop alternative sources of energy, to form a national civil reserve for emergencies.... Perhaps it was a shrewd political read on Bush's part-- a recognition that Americans, for all their passion after September 11, would inevitably slouch back on their sofas. It seemed fair to ask, though, how a body politic as out of shape as ours was likely to make it over the long, hard slog of wartime... So the months after September 11 were a lost opportunity- to harness the surge of civic energy."
So this says that post 9/11 Americans weren't urged to do all these collective pursuits for their country, but what I see in this is that, although it's not the norm, we (me and other like minded PCVolunteers)are doing these things. why? To take some kind of action-- to do something that may actually mean something. Although our generation seems to manifest senses of self-entitlement and egotism, these give us the confidence to actually enter the world and try to do something meaningful because we believe we are actually capable of having an effect on it all.
So, we will continue to try and call it Thriving (not just surviving) because we hope that's what it is. And we will reflect when we're ancient (our 40s...just kidding!) and a little jaded-- and hope that we were right.
http://abbylamarocaine.blogspot.com/
high on tiger blood and winning :)
_______
the language I may be speaking soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTk88g0f38o
ебануться!
