polycentric fluxations delineate a myriad of spatial/temporal constructs

WHOOF.
So that sentence doesn't actually have any meaning, at least none that I'd venture to put forward.

It's over a year since I finished school at the U of C. It was a fantastic four years of my life that enriched me culturally, personally, and especially academically. Fast foward to now - I feel like an idiot.

These feelings, as well as the title of this entry, arose as I have been trying recently to read a PhD dissertation on Sukuma culture written a few years back by a dude from the Netherlands (see!! this is what I mean!! Is 'a dude from the Netherlands' Dutch or Danish?!! I'm losing my mind...) Anyways, it's a beast of a dissertation, as I guess most are. I started struggling through the first part, and have since adapted a strategy that also came in handy in some of my more anthropological or sociological readings in college - I read the interesting data and observational sections, and skip the dense (BORING) analyses. So I'm learning some cool stuff about this dude's perception of rural Sukuma traditions and culture (I'm too urban to get much of this experience, Misungwi being the regular metropolis it is). But not learning AT ALL how the Sukuma of Mwanza fit into the broader ongoing debates within whatever fields this 'polycentric fluxators' mumbo-jumbo applies to.

What has caused me to digress so much in just a little over a year?! Part of it I'm sure is the intellectual fatigue I felt after finishing, and a concious effort I made shortly thereafter to remove myself from anything 'academic'. But another part of that might be that most of my friends here are very intelligent, but in a 'street-smart' way rather than a 'institution of higher learning' way, and by 'street-smart' I really mean 'farm-smart' or 'cow-smart' or 'very-small-business-smart'. This is not meant to be condescending at all, just an objectively realistic appraisal of my surroundings. It also has led me to frequently question just exactly WHO this dutch/danish dude was writing for. The end product of 2+ years of research here is great reading matrial for anthropologists and professors and people with bifocals in offices, but seems pretty clear to me that it won't benefit his actual research subjects a lick (I guess I'm questioning the field of anthropolgy itself?? Apologies to all anthropologists I have thus offended)

Ok, at the same time, I am not ready to go back to school for my Masters or even for a once-a-week evening class. Maybe next year, or the year after, but not now. What I do want is to catch up with a few of my PCV friends and have some stimulating conversations (in English!!!!) as we sip beers on the beach. I think that makes about 3 straight entries where I've mentioned my trip to Zanzibar - can you tell I'm pumped?!?

*** Warning regarding the following paragraph: Tanzanians are blunt. They say what they think - if you are fat, and they don't know your name, and they're talking about you, they'll refer to you in conversation by saying 'oh you mean that big fat guy?' Well guess what, I'm blunt too now, moreso than I was in the States.****

You know what else might help me spark my intellectual curiosity? Some good book recommendations! Or even better, SOME GOOD BOOKS!! Yeah, the 'holiday season' has mostly escaped me, but I wouldn't be American if I didn't have a little greed streak come December (unless I had lived in a cave, perhaps, which I didn't - despite having no cable TV). Volunteers here have a pretty good library of novels that float around from one place to another, but I am thinking about some interesting, well-written, but not overly academic non-fiction books, or recommendations for slightly more challenging works of fiction (Ayn Rand comes to mind - though all I have access to is Atlas Shrugged, which just seems TOO LONG for my first read).

Yeah, so that's that, my hour of air-conditioning is up for today. Time to go home and hide, I'm slightly deformed today thanks to a very mild rash around my mouth brought on by my gluttonous appetite for mangoes (don't freak out, mom). I feel like I'm in the 'Scarlet Letter,' but with a much less interesting sin. Can someone do the research for me on why the hell mangoes can make people break out in rashes?? After my diatribe on the state of my intellectual ability, I'm too tired to find the answer to this myself.