Megan's Experiences with the Military

so...
i apply for peace corps, and peace corps requires a medical examination. i don't have a doctor or health insurance, but i find out that i can get evaluated for free by the military! so, i go to an army recruitment center.

SAMPLING OF EXPERIENCES AT ARMY RECRUITMENT CENTER

"so, you're applying for peace corps? do you have any interest in joining the army?"
"um, probably not"
"because if you were interested in ever joining the army, you should know that after you go into peace corps you are no longer army eligible."
"really? why?"
"well, because peace corps is an extremist group."
"... huh. it's actually a federal program, run by the US government. it's a government organization."
"right, but it's an extremist government organization."
"huh. yeah, but, i mean, there's no political agenda for peace corps. just... cultural exchange and service to communities."
"yeah, but that's what i mean. it's extremist... because it's extremely nice."
"huh."
...
"so, you indicated your weight here, but what about this maximum weight part? i don't think that's right."
"right, i didn't know what that meant so i put the maximum weight i've ever weighed."
"ah, yeah, that's wrong. maximum weight means the maximum allowable weight for army eligibility. let's see here... [consults chart]... yeah... you're 10 pounds over. i mean, for army. ... i mean, you're probably fine... for peace corps"


after being told by the army that i am a fat extremist, i am ready for my appointment. i wake up at 4am this morning and use a bike/MAX combo to get to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) next to the airport, where i am processed starting at 5:30 am with 20 recent military recruits. like them, i am yelled at frequently.

SAMPLES OF ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR BY MEPS PERSONNEL
[in speed mumble] "how old are you today?"
"i'm fine, thanks"
"how OLD, how OLD ARE YOU TODAY?"
"what? oh, sorry, i'm 27"
"have you enlisted with the army before?"
"nope"
"what was that?"
"...no, uh-uh."
"YES or NO please. have you ENLISTED IN THE ARMY before."
"no"
"get your hands off the counter"
"yes, sir"

then i sit through a 2-hour armed forces-related presentation which instills a sense of discipline, fear, and a sense that anything could go wrong at any time unless i am constantly alert. my blood pressure is taken, to my horror, by a woman who looks and acts CREEPILY similar to the horrible Patience Tolentino of Concepts in Community Living, in horrible Clackamas. she is rude. she then watches attentively as i pee into a cup.
my eyes and ears are checked, and i have a brief consultation with a doctor.
then, the horror.
the "females" in the group, myself included, are herded by "Patience" into a room where we strip down to our underwear and stand in a line. one girl is near tears because she is forced to reveal her stretch marks and appendectomy scar. we tiptoe, we squat, we parade one-by-one through the room in our underwear. my underwear are old and, i fear, see-through. we squat again with our knees in the air and do a rolls-of-fat-inducing "duck walk" through the room.
demoralizing.

"Patience" watches, as well an even ruder girl with a heart tattooed behind her ear. the nurse practitioner is also there, and she is blessedly nice.

throughout the day, i hear a number of comments like, "hey, when are we going to get our special-issue weapons? you know, BAM! BAM!" or "i'm joining airforce. that's the one where you drop out of a plane and just shoot everyone you see."

one guy also says that he is so mad at Eve (of Adam & Eve)--and is mad by extension at women generally--for eating that apple which now makes it necessary for everyone to wear clothes, which means he doesn't get to see naked women walking around all the time. everyone laughs.

MEPS hasn't seen a peace corps applicant come through in probably 3 years.
i feel like maybe i make them almost as uncomfortable as they make me.



my forms appear to be complete and in good order! so. one painful step closer to africa.

seems high time!

for another authentic blog post.

here is the most recent picture of me ever taken!



that is now a lie!




you might note the continued long length of my hair. now, with layers! i have taken to washing it with plain bar soap, with favorable results.

but of course, this is not the stuff of my life. the stuff of my life is listed below.

1. continuous disappointments with self
2. room full of carpet-crawling ants, periodically annihilated en masse by vacuum
3. zero romance
4. musical explorations
5. continued french studies
6. continued satisfying work experiences (though some sixth grade girls are BITCHES)
7. moods which seem maybe to oscillate with the weather
8. lack of direction
9. paying big bucks to the IRS
10. listening to podcasts
11. bike riding
12. picture taking
13. the occasional doldrums

i don't know. i really don't know right now what i am doing/what is up with me.

will i spend my day off tomorrow working on these long feared but never yet confronted peace corps essays? i certainly hope so.
will i wake up at a decent hour? god permitting.
will i eat well and do any exercise besides biking? time will tell.

and so it is with me.

i love you all.
let us all move forward as best we can!

new and better

in lizinks,
please see links to sergio's camera photo blog as well as mine.

photo blog

so, not that i've been at all keeping up with this blog, but i've started another blog of sorts that is just a place i can send my cell phone pictures.

to see pictures of stuff i do/people i see, visit: viewasicon.tumblr.com.
sergio has one of these pages too and i took the idea from him. but i can't remember what his URL is!

i also have a music video to post on this here blog just as soon as i can get permission slips from the kiddos' parents at the school.

in other news, i'm not depressed at all anymore, and mason is a distant and unimportant figure from the past.

cheers homies,

megan

sigh

there's this guy i've been hanging out with through my school job who is funny/interesting/nice/flirty. he seems to think i'm so great and he wants to hang out all the time. so i'm like, yay.
but then last night at this party he was like, "oh your friend jonny works at the pete's where i get my coffee. there is a hot girl who works there, and i want to ask him about her." and he's made a few other comments about girls around me, and he seems to be telling me, "let's be friends, awesome megan."
i'm feeling really depressed today. i feel deflated and unmotivated and lame. additionally, i'm feeling lame for feeling so lame. i would like to think i am premenstrual but i am not.
and it's not just the dude, who is probably not so great anyway. it is the confirmation of my self-diagnosed "cool girl" syndrome, which is the female version of the "nice guy" syndrome. fucking sucks and i hate it.
um, but i'm sure i'll feel better later.
love from depresso-land,
megan

reflections part III

time for another reflective email. (inspired by mercedes' and micha's recent blog posts). (ahem, tara).

i'm at the fine grind, where i was scheduled to work from 12-4. it's kind of dead here so they're not having me work after all, or at least until later if people suddenly flood in.

i have some things to do/read so i'm taking the opportunity to overcaffeinate myself on an americano and contemplate peace corps essays/avoid writing peace corps essays by instead blogging about them.



so, peace corps essays. a couple of things about them. 1) i don't feel like writing them. 2) once i write them, there will be nothing in the way of me submitting my application, at which point i will be a peace corps candidate, at which point they could accept me at any time and take me away from portland and all my friends.

so... i just really don't want to work on my application.

but this is the thing. i have always been a super active high-achieving ambitious type. and i look at where i am right now, especially in light of rumors of others' accomplishments at the UN, or in Cambodia, or at a NYC AIDS clinic, or wherever, and i think: what?? i never pictured myself still being kind of lost, and working at a coffee shop, at age 26. but also, i hear about others' fancy jobs/educations and i know that i don't want to do those things. but basically if i stay in portland, i will never do anything, and my fun life will not look so cute when i am 35.



for whatever reason, peace corps seems like the obvious way out. for one thing, i am then busy for 2 years doing something respectable and exciting, and am freed of all responsibilities for planning for my future for those two years. and, better, i plan to become a better/more able/more focused/more skilled person during those two years. i will surely come back with an established and inspiring sense of self and purpose. and language skills. right??

i'm feeling a little tight-chested. though, that could be caffeination. it's telling me that's spelled wrong but i don't believe it. so, a weird thing that is happening: americanos make me feel twitchy but lattes don't. why? why??



ok, another thing in the works (hanging menacingly overhead). moving! from the blivion! there is talk of, and serious talk of, and in fact planning for, tara and i moving from the blivion into some house in NE with taya and silvija. the blivion's final death cry will soon sound. WHAT ABOUT DORK CLUB?? it will shriek. tara and i will lower our heads and murmur:
honey, dork club died a long, long time ago.

this website seems cool: http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/

images from it are somewhere in this post

BC

this is a rushed post from a cafe on salt spring island, british columbia.
british columbia feels a lot like oregon, or washington. i see what they are saying about cascadia. artificial political boundaries, etc. the only thing that seems really different is money- the prices are weird (expensive) and the money is weird (canadian).

we're meeting some of my mom's hippy coffee shop friends and they are actually pretty funny. they are all talking about astrology and precious stones and spirit signals and stuff, but in a good way. i would probably get tired of it eventually but luckily i'm just here for a few days.

here's a picture of the coffee shop:


and of me:


my brother is driving me (and everyone) kind of crazy. MAJOR control freak. jesus christ. (exactly.)

love
megan

my mom's surprise wedding

i was mad over the weekend because i found out my mom was getting married on monday and that all of my siblings were going to be there but me.
i was later able to talk to my sister who assured me that i was not being intentionally excluded-- one thing had led to another, ronan decided to drive from las vegas completely unexpectedly, etc--

but it still felt crappy.

(my mom met her then-fiance about a month ago. but he seems nice).

on sunday night i was closing the coffee shop where i work. i left there at midnight and checked my messages.

on my machine was a message from my stepdad-to-be, whom of course i had not yet met, proclaiming that if i could take the day off work on monday he would pay for my plane ticket to san francisco where they were to be married in a courthouse.

on my way home i thought, no way!! that is crazy!! and then i thought, i must go. I SIMPLY MUST GO.

so i got home at 12:30 am, called and woke up my stepdad-to-be, and we purchased tickets online. five hours later i was out the door and on my way to the airport. by 9am i was in san francisco in my sister's studio apartment, with my sister, both brothers, my brother's fiance, my mom, and my stepdad-to-be.

i left the next morning (tuesday) bright and early and went to work straight from the airport. it was CRAZY.

i made this video. it's kind of long (ten minutes) so you don't have to watch the whole thing.

schizophrenics

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

sorry about that last post

i forgot to delete it after seeing it didn't work. in any case, 19,722 days and counting.
i will die october 2, 2061. how many for you mercedes?

in other news: this is amazing!!!!!!



also now that i'm blogging from my laptop every time i think i'm going to frequently throw in up-to-the-moment, true-to-life images of... myself.

this is me RIGHT NOW.



it is 3 am and i should really go to bed. i've spent what some might call "too much" time on youtube tonight/this morning.

IT IS SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 23RD

I JUST LEFT A COMMENT ON TARA'S NEW BLOG (NOW LINKED FROM THIS BLOG) AND I HAD CAPS LOCK ON FOR THAT COMMENT AND I JUST HAVEN'T TURNED IT OFF YET.

now it's off though.

it's sunday, september 23rd, one day after the First Annual Dork Club Conference 2007 (FA-DCC 2007). which was SO FREAKING GREAT. the Dork Club Committee Vanguard (DCC-V), made up of myself, tate, tara, taya and sergio, worked long and hard and in the end i think it was a great success.

here is what i look like RIGHT NOW while blogging on the couch:



and here is what tara looks like RIGHT NOW while blogging on the other couch:



i have completed one week of training for my AWESOME NEW JOB, which boasts:
1. hilarious coworkers
2. nice coworkers
3. nice supervisor
4. fun and games
5. support and kindness
6. getting up and around
7. yay!

i'm feeling pretty happy in general.

i should get in shape.

later homeys!

megan

well well

this horse is apparently named Awesome:



today was my last day of work. i came home and drank a beer. i came home with 13 balloons (12 now), all the crap i had at the office including a foam clock of a pizza chef who swings back and forth EVERY SECOND!, two slices of cake, left over 5 cheese pasta from my going away lunch, a bag of tomatoes, and my gift from CCL: a blue organizer that, though big and kind of ugly/cute/ugly, i will try to actually use. (maybe it'll double as life-thoughts-keeper? and i have to think of things to keep in its various pockets).
tara and i both wanted me to take pictures of all my coworkers, but i couldn't think of an excuse to. of course, i couldn't tell them i wanted to be better able to blog about them.
though (duh) i could have taken a group photo with my camera, at the lunch.
crap!
anyway.... one thing i discovered today is:
people like people with balloons! i was the life of the party on the bus home today!
my sister sent me a package! she paid me back money she owed me, plus $50 that i had gifted rather than loaned her, and made me a CD and sent me a book! and she has been around gchat occasionally and i am having fond big-sister affectionate feelings.
...
i invited the guy norm i had a crush on from the service-learning trip to my party on saturday, as well as a handful of other students. i also told them in the email that i'd quit my job. norm wrote back:

Megan,
Congratulations on leaving the hellhole!!!
I knew you could do it!
Hope to see you at the party.
-n

norm looks like this (myspace photo):



to be honest, that picture makes him look a little bit hotter than he usually is.
but he said he would try to come on saturday. which might actually be awkward, since corianne definitely can't make it (out of town), and alan may or may not make it. that guy seth who wrote me that mean email might come- we are all buddy buddy now, though he's kind of a weird guy (see mean email).

my boss was supposed to come in today and attend my goodbye party (i haven't seen her in weeks) but she apparently had a late plane, or something. which she did not tell me, but rather someone else. didn't contact me today, or all week really. she DID mention to jeanie that i would be doing some ongoing projects with her, which i suppose means she has agreed to my offer of doing some projects from home. though of course she never got back to me on that.

but enough! enough of this! she means nothing to me!!!!

also i received a check today for all of my last hours, INCLUDING PAYOUT FOR VACATION TIME!! which i didn't think i got!

au revoir!

megan "new megan" harrington

some stuff i looked up

more options

i forgot about this option



which looks like this up close



and then there's of course the full suit option. i think it looks good but is maybe too much? i am in portland.

please view interview outfits below and vote

my interview is at 3:30 today. i also could go and buy something else to wear.




i did iron this one but could maybe iron it some more


some chic is singing at the top of her longs somewhere behind our house and she is off key and extremely loud. it sounds like some kind of chant. i'd like to make her stop.


whoever left "hot guy on guy action" or something as the search term in my google quicksearch bar is a jerk.

guess what?

i applied for a job yesterday! and today they called me, and i have an interview on friday! this organization has nine (9) openings for the same position, so i think i can reasonably feel pretty confident.

the organization is: portland camp fire (part of camp fire USA). they do after school programming for local schools. i would be developing curriculum and teaching/supervising volunteer teachers? and stuff like that. it would only be 20/week and $11 an hour so i would definitely also have to get another job.

there is this other job called "curriculum developer" that seems awesome, you come up with activity ideas for classrooms and it seems like you work in a fun team with fun young people. perhaps i could do that part time.

dunno.

for whatever reason the field of education is very appealing to me right now. mostly because it is the complete opposite of what i am currently doing. 1) constantly surrounded by people 2) the people you are constantly surrounded by are very demanding 3) get attached to people 4) busy busy busy 5) cute nice people 6) working on a team 7) up and about.

all sounds excellent!

also important is that it is a 9-month position. so the idea would be that i would spend time during this 9-months really seriously looking at my options abroad, with a vague plan to leave portland in summer or fall of 2008. exxxxcellent.

i'm feeling upbeat about it! also even if i don't get this job i will start taking more seriously the idea of applying for other jobs. my job is just unacceptable. unacceptable.

[img: walking into a bright new future]



i'm taking friday off! i was just going to take off the afternoon for the interview but i was like, WHAT THE HEY!!

gimme a b. b. gimme an l. l. gimme an o. o. gimme a g. g.

i really do appreciate that 66.66% of my readers have responded with outrage regarding my one-month hiatus from blogging. it means so much.

for the last month, i have not worked at all.

at work this month i have watched every episode of "flight of the conchords" on youtube. below is part one of episode one. i have also watched several movies and read most of the new harry potter book from work. the problem is that keren is not around and no one is asking me to do stuff and while it would be plenty easy to find things to do (i wouldn't have to look; it is pretty obvious) i just don't care anymore. so, i'm sort of looking for new jobs/sort of/kind of. temporary variety, and then also jobs abroad maybe, starting in a year or so, maybe.



my hair is pretty long now and i can put it in double buns. in the third picture you can see the top of my hair from the back.







i also went outside and took a picture of the front of our building


and also a picture of the company car that i drive around sometimes.


this is really mostly just a warm-up practice blog post.

i fuckin love coloring

Powered by ScribeFire.

ready now to blog about my trip to nicaragua

oooh, it was so great.

it was pretty exhausting and sweaty and dirty and mosquito-y, just like i wanted! i ended up being totally useless as far as the actual hands-on engineering projects went, but i was super useful as a translator and left the country feeling pretty excited about my spanish skills.

first we flew into managua where we discovered that one of our expensive boxes of tools did not make it into the country (or at least onto the conveyor belt). then we went to the hotel where the power was out and it was hot hot hot and dark dark dark.

the next day we toured around some major city landmarks in managua and also went to check out the dump, where people live in shacks on trash heaps and spend all day sorting through the trash for recyclables to sell and other odds and ends. there is an AWESOME SCHOOL on the fringe of the dump that is run by some christian organization and teaches all the dump kids for free. see adorable pictures below.




the next day we left for granada, a touristy cute town where we spent a day on a long and pretty serious hike followed by a ridiculously cool CANOPY TOUR in which i zoomed around the cloud forest on a zip line. AWESOME.

at this point we were still in our unwieldy group of 22. then the next day the groups split and i ventured off with the engineering students (my favorites) to the TOTALLY GREAT town of jinotepe, not far from managua. there we stayed at a pretty ridiculously cool hotel that apparently used to be the toast of the town and a favorite party location for the somoza dynasty. the hotel has a big roof where we spent our nights drinking rum and looking over the town.

in jinotepe we got up every day at 7 am and headed off to the local old folks home, called a hogar, where various projects took place, such as water tank installation, roof tile fixing, seismic upgrading, and electrical rewiring. also some house painting.




at the hogar we met up with a group of local engineering students who quickly became our best friends and worked with us every day on the job site, actually making it so that there was too much work for the number of people there. so i wasn't able to do any actual work, which was too bad. i spent my days shuttling around helping with translations between the portland students, almost none of whom spoke spanish, and the nicaragua students, almost none of whom spoke english. i also led an exercise class at the hogar every day (see picture) and coordinated things like transportation, lunch delivery, goodbye party, etc. for the goodbye party i was the MC and i forgot to line up a translator for the event so i was also the translator. kind of extremely stressful because the mayor came and made a speech and everything. eek!



throughout this time all the engineering students adopted me and it was great. we formed a united front against keren, just like i had dreamed we would. they offered me support and most importantly pity and when keren would call and act like a psycho, i could look over my shoulder and receive thumbs up. so, that was pretty great.

things with keren not so great. what a jerk.

finally after 8 or so days in jinotepe we packed up, said our tearful goodbyes to our nicaraguan engineering counterparts.

back in managua we did this and that, but most importantly i invited the architect who is designing the expansion of the jinotepe hogar to dinner with us, and he came and he and i talked the whole time and "hit it off" if you will, and then i walked him back to his car where we told each other we liked each other and then had a sad hug and he said "i like you too much" and i felt warm and fuzzy and wanted.

carlos the architect is the one on the far right. keren, my boss, is pretending to dig the first hole on an expansion of the building that isn't actually beginning for a couple of months.



then i walked back to the hotel, where the students were in the process of getting extremely drunk. i caught up with them in no time and then we packed our bags drunkenly at 3 in the morning and got to the airport and 4:30 in the morning and were on a plane by 6:30, at which point corianne, my best student buddy, passed out and puked in first class.

she's alright, though.

after only a 5 and a half hour layover in houston, we were on our way to portland!

now i am in email correspondence with carlos the architect, who so far has not seemed any less cool than before. nice to have a crush. i think i forgot to mention he is married? very married. this is why the hug and no kiss and the sadness. but of course, all for the best.

that's all my friends! now i am back in clackamas and holding up reasonably well. haven't done all that much work yet. mostly thinking about nicaragua and catching up on personal matters. whoops.

la la laaaa la la laaaa