#1 - greetings from Ironsin!

I have not posted anything new in 6 months due to a combination of grad school rigors and sheer laziness and although it is now officially summer, for me it is no time to indulge wholeheartedly in the latter. My course of study (for whom I have only myself to blame) requires me to spend these months studying Persian so that I might acquire sufficient language skills to qualify for placement in advanced language classes this fall. I know , it all sounds very glamorous, but unlike my classmates who are off to all corners of the globe this summer to absorb native cultures and save the Third World from disease and economic hardship, I will be staying here in the States. Due to circumstances beyond my control—such as the chance that Bush may take this remaining time to go for three in the Middle East—I will not be studying in Iran this summer, nor anywhere near it. Instead, I have sequestered myself in an 8-week language immersion program in rural Wisconsin—or, as I like to call it in the spirit of exotic flair—Ironsin.

We are a small group in a small town near the Mississippi River. The town is quaint and strange. You can walk down the middle of the road until nearly downtown without encountering any vehicles to endanger your stroll. There is a Taco Bell and a Hooters but no Starbucks. It is quiet. It is muggy. It is only Week 2 and it is driving us all insane.

But of course that is the idea—that there be nothing left for us to do except eat, sleep and live Persian. I must confess, though this is an immersion program, few of us uphold the Persian language speaking rule 24/7. We do our best, but we have discovered that at a certain point one’s brain reaches a melting point where it simply refuses to function—it will not read, it will not provide words for the mouth, it will not translate. It simply sits back stubbornly with its arms folded across its chest, pouting. And so we give in and occasionally speak English, but it is always quietly and with guilt in our voices.

Only one person in the program adheres strictly to the ‘no English’ rule. He sits everyday in his room or the lounge, hunched over his dictionary and notes, with Iranian satellite TV blaring. He does not speak English and will not tolerate hearing it—if he hears a non-Persian conversation he turns away, back to the seclusion from whence he came. He brought his own advanced reading materials and has volunteered to provide them to others in an extra class session at night. Although I admire his dedication and wish that I had such willpower, I fear it as well. It is a scary thing to watch someone lose himself so completely to anything. It is these very cases of self-immolation that allow me to justify such distractions as Spider Solitaire and blogging. It isn’t healthy to do one thing nonstop for 8 weeks. It wouldn’t be good—no, it wouldn’t be right—to limit myself to the guidelines of the program: no English spoken, written or heard. Adherence to such rules would be a detriment to my relationships, my world-awareness and my mental health. Blogging will be good for me, and besides, the opportunity to disobey the rules in such a blatantly passive-aggressive manner really appeals to my sense of contrariness.

Thus, this summer I have decided to provide the occasional blog update for whoever has grown so tired of their own boredom that they would seek temporary refuge in thoughts of mine. Though none may prove thrilling, hopefully you will find that the grass is indeed greener in Ironsin.