Banonoor im Ek (Baskets and Fish)

Every week we have an activity with the young women in my ward (ward = congregation) and pretty much every week I learn something flamingly awesome. The last two weeks have been particularly good:

Naan decided to teach the girls how to make banonoor, which is a small basket with two handles that is made from coconut fronds (kimej). All you need for materials is a coconut frond, count 5 leaves/strands/whatever you call them, then tear them off. You'll need 4 5-strand chunks for your banonoor.

Rosemillie and Naan

The materials.

How to start one side of the basket.

Make two of these.

Braid them together in a sort of backwards braid. Didn't fully understand this part.

Crystal 

Naan working her magic.

Rosemillie with Rutha.

Finished baskets. You just tie knots in the ends of the braids and them tie them together if you like.

We also learned how to make Marshallese balls for games out of three strands of the coconut frond. It really didn't seem too hard but it was painfully apparent upon completion that actual skill was needed.

Rice im Ek.

The second activity was cooking brown rice and fish at my house. Juana was in charge, and she brought over a big fat parrot fish. We can't really go fishing ourselves around here unless we ask a native if the fish is poisonous or not, so I was glad that she was in charge of this activity. On a side note, aren't my girls beautiful?

Kamat ek eo ilo paan an burae (I think I said that right—cooking the fish in the frying pan).

While the food was cooking I told them a little bit about American etiquette and how to eat politely at the table. I was told afterward that for a couple of the girls there it was really exciting because it was the first time they had ever eaten with a real fork. !!! We take so much for granted. Working with the young women has been really rewarding for me. I see more clearly what they struggle with, what life is like for them, and how simple positive experiences can make a difference.

Happy Birthday Adam Bieber

I belieb in you.

UnZombifying

My fantastic mother-in-law, Catherine, is the queen of real living. She is connected to LIFE. Recently she posted about LIFE and being aware of what television/digital use does to us and our children. She's not talking about going into the Dark Ages (obviously, because she blogged about this), but she is suggesting that we have lost touch with LIFE. I highly recommend her posts:

Pictures of LIFE (and I can attest that they show how it is in the Zvirzdin home—wrestling, going outside, growing a garden, swimming, fishing, talking, working together, eating together, being together)

79 Things to Do without a Gadget

Observations on Digital Media from a Mother of 7 Boys and Grandmother of 3 Boys

Responsibilities of Parents: Be with Your Children and Teach Them Yourself

Granted, some of those 79 things are extremely difficult to do when in the Foreign Service because of the nature of some posts. I have recently (the bid list having come out) been contemplating what life might be like in places where security and malaria are serious issues. Some post reports have said that bringing a whole slew of DVDs is a must. I don't really want to live like that. There must be another way.

And don't get me wrong. I like White Collar and MacGyver and I have my favorite movies (Truman Show and Megamind), but there will always be something else to watch—something good, perhaps, but always at the expense of something better.

Thanks, Catherine. I think I'll go make my own list of non-gadgety things to do.

Home on the Range

I was recently asked if I wanted a job at the Embassy. I'd be an exalted secretary of sorts, preparing the calendar of events for the Ambassador, going to their morning meeting, handling grants, and a host of other stuff. The State Department has had a rocky history in handling jobs for the spouses of FSO officers (we're called Eligible Family Members or EFMs for those who don't know), and sometimes EFMs have felt that some of the work is rather menial, but here in the Marshall Islands every person at the Embassy is desperately needed (there are only 4 Foreign Service Officers—the Ambassador, the DCM, Andrew (Pol/Econ/Con), and the GSO. The locally hired staff members are crucial as well. So it is quite flattering, the offer.

But they'd have to pay me a pretty penny to go back to full-time work, especially work that is not in my field and that I don't really enjoy. Sometimes I'm not really diplomatic, either, so I'd probably cause some ruckus. And besides, I sure enjoy my life right now. Lots and lots of freedom. Lots of time to spend laughing with (and at) Max, time to exercise, time to run my own business (and currently, I'm editing a 400-page technical textbook manuscript. It is intense!), and of course, time to do those housecleaning things that I actually never seem to find time for. Nobody to wear makeup for (and it would sweat down your face anyway), shorts and a T-shirt every day, no commute to anywhere (a small grocery store is across the street) and Marshallese women even disdain shaving. It is a low-key paradise, seriously. But I do appreciate the offer for the job and I wish them the best.

Here are some videos of my 21-month-old wunderkind. He knows all the numbers from 0 to 100 (in order, although sometimes he skips from 59 to 70), all the names of the letters in the alphabet, all their sounds, including short and long vowel sounds, and he can spell "Max," "Jamie," "car," "dog," "red," "no," and "yes." Any suggestions on what we should do next??

Counting to 50 (from 47)



"Mixing" Numbers




In the LDS Church we have what we call Family Home Evening (FHE—there's another acronym for you, EFMs and FSOs!). It's a time for the family to be in the same room and be with each other rather than staring at the TV. We start and end with a prayer, sing a song, have a little lesson, and have an activity and a treat. Pretty much every day Maxwell asks for "Famee Ho Eenin" and runs to the piano. So the following were from various FHE nights (ours are usually Monday nights).

Book of Mormon Stories—Zvirzdin Style



Bowling for Max




Pass the Pigs. If you don't know what this game is, here is its Wikipedia page. It even has the relative frequencies of each roll. Wow.

Science AND Religion: How Cosmic Rays Teach Faith

I recently had a conversation with a scientist who said that he didn’t need God. He was content without a God, and some spiritual experiences this man had had were demoted to “tricks of the brain.” And to this scientist I say, suit yourself. You have turned away from another source of Truth. However, you can’t claim that humans are stupid and nothing but evolved animals on one hand and then turn around and claim that humans are capable of perfectly understanding the universe and how it functions. It’s like claiming Apehood and Godhood in the same breath.

It takes humility to admit that we don’t understand everything about the universe yet. And yes, religion and religious experiences do fall in that category of things we don’t understand yet. No one can prove or disprove God; faith has always been involved in religious experiences and relationships with Deity. Why? My short answer is that God is merciful, and if we knew 100% that He existed then we would be 100% accountable for our misdeeds. Our ignorance is a merciful buffer.

And what does it mean to have faith in something you can’t scientifically prove? I would say that it is the same type of hope that I had to employ when I researched cosmic rays at the University of Utah—I couldn’t see the sub-atomic particles themselves, but the machines we would run on moonless nights (photomultiplier tubes and old computers, set high atop a mesa in the Utah desert) told me about them. We were able to learn a lot from that equipment. They benefited our search for Truth. I believe that God uses prophets like those machines. Neither conduit, the machine or the prophet, is perfect, but it doesn’t mean we automatically discount their information. If a prophet says that I, Jamie, will be happier by keeping the commandments, it is my responsibility to take up the experiment of seeing if that prophet—if the data—is correct. The results of this experiment are not easily quantified, but they do yield amazing results. 

 Yes, that's me with the bangs and the long hair, working in Unix, along with a page of notes from the first day of my job at HiRes. It was the best summer job ever. I did that for three summers (2001–2003).

I consider Religion and Science like I do a pair of eyes—the other adds depth and perspective, but close one and you may miss something that the other might have clarified. I love science. I love Truth. I want it. I want to study it. It is obvious from my studies that plants and animals and humans have evolved throughout the ages. How do Adam and Eve fit in with this? I don’t know . . . YET. I have some ideas. But I do know, based on my personal experiments in reading the scriptures, attending church, and praying to that Unknown God, that being a Latter-day Saint has brought an extreme amount of happiness, peace, and understanding to my life. It has been a successful experiment, one that I intend to repeat every day, every Sunday. There are aspects of my religion that I DON’T understand or that I DON’T agree with, but I, a regular human, do not claim that my logic or my understanding concerning those things is either complete or perfect. So I keep experimenting. I keep an open mind—and an open heart, which is often something that all those open minds need.

We have to learn about our existence line upon line, precept upon precept. God will give us more as we are able to handle Truth. If a scientist says, “I have had enough,” then God won’t force the issue. But He will “lengthen out [His] arm unto them from day to day . . . all the day long.”

I heartily recommend the experiment of testing God at His word. It is a personal experiment as well as a family experiment. An excellent discourse on faith, how to have it, and how to recognize results can be found here.

M81—one of my favorite galaxies. Image used with permission.

Goals for 2012

 Image from here.

I consider goals essential to my progress. They help me. They may not help you, but they sure help me. They help me focus my energy.

Last year I had these goals, and upon reflection I feel like they were almost satisfactorily met. That's okay. I can move on or try again. This time, general things like "love your family" and "fulfill your church calling" and "go on a date every Friday with Andrew" and "feed your child" are not included in these goals, because those are givens. I'm trying to be more specific this year.

So these are my goals for 2012:

• Read Marshallese Children's Book of Mormon by June (I have an English copy that helps me decipher the Marshallese—it is quite effective)
• Read 1/2 of Marshallese Book of Mormon from June to December
• Read a book every other week, more if possible (26+ books by the end of the year)
• Learn how to draw (with the help of my friend Daryle; she is great and in return I'm going to teach her InDesign)
• Exercise 5x a week and keep using www.loseit.com (A note on that: one of the FSO bloggers I follow had a funny post about LoseIt, so I checked it out—and lo and behold, I too started realizing a lot of stuff about the way I eat. Although I don't think it is healthy to judge your value by how little you weigh, and I absolutely refuse to base my happiness on a scale, it is good to be observant about the types of things you put in your mouth and what those things do to your body. It's keeping me accountable and it's rather like a game. Andrew is doing it too and it's been fun to discuss it)
• Write my own eBook
• Write a children's book and illustrate it myself (having learned to draw)
• Set up a non-profit (to be discussed later)
• Finish my grandma's personal history

In the words and goals of Simone de Beauvoir, I am not just maintaining the repetition of Life, but I am transcending Life through Existence. I am grateful for my son, Max, but I do not believe that my only contribution in this life has to be through bearing and raising children. It's so important to have things you like to do, to progress in areas of interest, and to use talents to make the world better. It's ever so much better than sitting in front of Facebook or the TV and watching life go by. I love to act and not be acted upon!

Image from here.

Published

Now that things have settled down (not the weather, though—we might have some good flooding in the next week! So exciting!), I can blog about various tidbits.

The first is that at the end of last year, my little publishing services business, The Unbound Bookmaker, finished a full book, among other things, and I think it's our best work yet. I did the ghostwriting, typesetting, the cover design, and final publication details, and I had two subcontractors who did the proofreading and the indexing. The ghostwriting was the most difficult part on my side of things because I disagreed with a lot of the author's political views and tone of voice. It was tough. But here it is, and if you click here you can take a look at the inside of it through Amazon. It's a real book!